A Dark Tale
by 44q
Summary: Buffy/Angel story. AU, all human. Buffy's a cop in the middle of a murder case. Angel is a local doctor who ends up crossing paths with her after being hurt in the line of duty.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One:

Buffy sighed deeply, leaning against the light pole. Buffy lifted her foot to relieve the ache that the four inch spiked heels she was wear caused. Then something caught her eye so she glanced up just in time to catch the tail end of a flash of lightening between some buildings. Thunder rolled ominously across the sky just a few seconds later.

"Well, isn't that great?" Buffy grouched.

There was a burst of static in her ear. "Hey Buf, you do know that leather starts to shrink when it gets wet." Her partner who was currently cozy, comfortable, and cool in the surveillance van laughed over the electronic piece in her ear.

Buffy stood, balancing unsteadily. She yanked down the very short leather skirt she wore that barely covered what was legal. "Next time, you get to wear these heels and come out here to shake your ass" she hissed, knowing that her words would be picked up by the tiny receiver hidden in the pitiful excuse for a vest she wore over her breasts.

Detective Riley Finn, her partner for the four years that she'd worked homicide, laughed again. "Oh, but you do it so well, Buffy."

She turned, surreptitiously flipped off the surveillance van, hearing the chuckles of the morons inside.

"Hey, you know that we could have gotten some uniform to do it. You weren't having it, remember? You had to up and volunteer."

Buffy ignored the truth of his words and walked the dirty sidewalk, pretending her feet were bothering her, that her head wasn't buzzing from exhaustion. She was just going to have to close this case or let it kill her.

Buffy caught the glares of others who were walking the same stretch of sidewalk. The people, both males and females, who were out here trying to turn tricks, trying to earn rent money or enough to get something to eat, or for their next fix. She tried to ignore the younger kids that were out here, selling their bodies all the same, some just because being here was better than what they had to go home to ... a life that they would consider worse than one living out on the streets. And no matter how hard the city tried, there just wasn't enough time or money or man power to completely fix a situation that was so overwhelming. But it was still enough to break hearts, seeing how skinny these kids were, or to see the dazed look in their eyes from dugs.

Buffy heard a loud blast of a defective mffler before she saw the car it came from. Loud, raucous music blared out from the open windows. The bass was up so loud that it vibrated against the earpiece. She heard the whine of feedback and swore. One of the three boys from the car put his head out the window. "Hey baby," he yelled as they passed her. "How about a freebie? It's my birthday!:

"I don't do ten year olds, kid," she yelled back. "Go home to your mama huh?"

"Fuck you, bitch!" he yelled at her as they roared off.

"Why wasn't that kid in bed?" she muttered, mostly to herself.

"Well, I think he was trying to get back there..." Riley said with a chuckle.

She ignored him and his comment and glanced down the street. Her eyes caught then focused on an aging hooker who was bent over talking to an older man in a BMW. She looked old enough to be Jesus' grandmother, her skin like a prune and about the same matching color. She had on a skirt that was a bright red that made hers look positively prim in comparison to it. A fake gold lame halter barely contained the breasts that hung down to her waist, swinging with each movement she made. She had a full head of impossibly curly locks that almost hung down to her waist. She let out a laugh, it sounded like a cackle from the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz.

Buffy turned her purse so that the tiny camera that was concealed in its straps caught the image of the old woman. "Ri, I thought you told that girlfriend of yours to stay off the streets." Buffy heard the hoots of laughter from the other two cops in the van down the street over her earpiece.

"Hey," he replied, without any hesitiation. "That is my woman you are talking about. And trust me, you take out those fake teeth and let her go..."

"Yeah, okay. Perv."

"And proud of it."

Buffy turned to walk back to her pole when she felt the first drop of rain splash on her shoulder. The sky flashed and rumbled.

"We should pack this up," Riley told her. "Come on, I'll be nice. I'll buy you a beer and rub those feet for you."

Buffy considered it and started to walk down the street to the motel where they had set up part of this sting when a long black sedan pulled up next to the curb. It kept pace with her for a minute until she looked over. Adrenaline pumped through her system, fast and furious as she recognized the make and the model as being the same as their one and only witness had given them.

The owner of the black sedan was wanted in connection to several murders that had been plaguing the less affluent neighborhoods of her fine cirt. Seven girls so far, all street hookers, had been picked up off the strets. The last girl's body had been found just last week and the damage to her had been severe. She had literally been torn to piece. The cause of death, as far as the medical examiner had been able to deduce, had been blunt force trama. Her skull had been caved in with something like a steel bat. Prior to death though, she had been raped, she had been assaulted and tortured. But, they had caught a break in the case. Her friend and roommate had been with her when she'd been picked up and had identified the car.

This car.

The passenger side window slowly rolled down as she turned to the car. There was a burst of static in her ear. "It looks like the right car, Buf. Same procedure. Get him to go to the motel room and we will take him there."

Buffy smiled, snapping her gum as she strolled over the car's window. She bent at the waist to look in, giving the driver a view of her cleavage. "Hey there honey, how are you doin' tonight?" she drawled out, making the words sound like sex in her throat.

"How much?"

Well, so much for verbal foreplay. "Well, that depends on what you want, sugar." She snapped her gum provocatively.

"I want to fuck you. How much?"

Boy, he sure was a charmer. Buffy sized him up. "Fifty for a half hour. Anything more than that we renegotiate. That sound okay to you?"

The man grunted, tapping a button on the steering wheel. The door she was leaning on unlocked and unlatched.

"Don't you dare get in that car."

Buffy almost rolled her eyes. She was not that stupid. "Sorry baby. I will meet you around the corner." She named off the motel and started backing away.

"Get in." The man turned.

"Sorry sugar, that's just not how I work. You can meet me at my motel and I will give you..."

"No."

Shit. Damn. Fuck.

Buffy stood indecisive. He tapped a button and the door closed and latched. The window started to roll up. "Wait a second now baby," she said, reaching for the door handle. She sent a mental apology out to her partner.

"Goddamn it, Buffy. Do not get in that car."

The door swung open and Buffy slid in onto the leather seat. She barely got her feet in before he started closing in on her. She heard the omnious sound of the lock being engaged. Buffy turned, running a hand along the leather, using the move to put her closer to the door and further from him. "Nice car. Now where we going? I can't be away from my corner too long or some bitch will come along and try taking over." She slid her purse onto her lap, feeling inside for her nine millimeter. With its familiar grip in hand, she felt a little steadier.

The man stared straight ahead, ignoring her now that she'd gotten in the car. He drove with one hand, the other one tapping out a rhythm that only he could hear.

"We're behind you, Buffy. And I am personally going to kick that ass of yours when I get you out of this," Riley's voice was in her ear.

Yeah, yeah. As if she hadn't heard that before.

Buffy looked around, noting the changing landscape. The street that they were on now would take her into the city limits in a couple more miles, becoming less populated, more deserted. Right now though, they still had traffic to contend with. They were away from the hotels and motels, quickly leaving fast food places behind, starting toward the warehouse distract on the outside of the city. Se turned to look at him, seeing him now grinning. It was a huge and scary twist of lips.

The man reached out with one of his large hands to grab the red locks on her head, yanking hard.

She had the momentary satisfaction of seeing the look of surprise on his face when the wig came off of her head and stuck in his grip. He stared at it, then back at her, noting the blonde hair that wisped around her face. He threw the wig into the back seat and reached for her again. Buffy pulled out her gun from the purse and aimed it at him. "Police! You son of a bitch! Pull it over!"

He looked at her for just an instant, then his foot slammed down on the accelerator, his hands coming off of the wheel and reaching for her. One hand gripped the gun and turned it towards her. He backhanded her with the other, connecting with a hard blow across her cheek.

Buffy felt like the entire side of her face had exploded. But even stunned by the blow, she managed to retain hold of her weapon. She saw the next hit coming and managed to duck down and under it as he growled out in rage. She struggled with all her might. She strained with everything she had but knew she wasn't going to be strong enough to turn the gun back around or to get it out of his grip. She fought to keep his finger off of the trigger but that wasn't going so well either.

Everything slowed until each movement seemed intricate and separated from everything else. She saw his finger pull the trigger and for an instant, before he did it, her hands shoved upward. The bullet that should have gone into her head instead went through the window next to it, shattering the glass.

Buffy could hear Riley's voice shouting in her ear for back up just above the ringing from the gunshot. But she knew it was going to be too late.

Buffy let go with one hand and smashed the heel of her palm against his nose, hearing and feeling it break. The blood spewed out, the color almost too red to be real. The gun pointed in her direction again, even as he roared out loud in pain and anger.

The bore of the weapon seemed so huge, a big black cavern that she could climb into and hide. Seconds felt like hours as she watched death stalk closer to her.

Buffy heard the shrieking of metal on metal, felt the car shudder before it ricocheted off the bumper of the car in front of them. The jolt pushed her into the dash, her head cracked against the window. Then she was flying over and over inside the car as it rolled.

It stopped in an intersection and she looked out the window, completely dazed. She saw the old SUV right before it rammed them. She heard someone scream. And then everything was black.

* * *

Riley heard the gunshots, he heard Buffy scream, and couldn't seem to remember to breath after that. He saw the car she was in flip into the air and come down on its roof, sliding into oncoming traffic in the intersection. He watched in complete horror as the large truck rammed into the passenger side door of the sedan.

"Oh, fuck," he breathed out. Then he was out the door of the van, running to the turned car, yelling into his radio. "Officer down! Officer down!" He could hear the call coming out from the van also, heard the address being relayed. He dropped his radio and tried to yank open the door but it was too caved in.

The driver of the SUV opened his car door and started to step out. He stopped though as he turned, his gun drawn. "Get in your truck!"

Riley ddn't even pay attention to see if the man had obeyed. Instead, he dropped down, ignoring the shards of glass and metal and crawled through the window.

"Buffy!" he shouted. She wasn't in the seat. Their suspect was unconscious, still belted in, hanging upside down in his own seat. The air bag was limp in front of him. Riley felt for a pulse, finding it strong and steady. He grabbed for his cuffs and used them on the suspect before crawling further into the car, sliding between the seats of the backseat.

Riley saw one leg showing beneath the junk from the backseat and he heard her moan. He pushed the debris off of her, careful to not her more. Finally, he was able to uncover her face, hidden by the red wig she'd been wearing earlier. Her cheeks were bloody and there was a gash at her temple that was the cause of most of it. Her green eyes were closed. "Buffy?" Riley pushed her hair from her forehead, scooting closer to her. "Come on, talk to me."

Buffy moaned and he breathed out a heavy sigh of relief. He watched as her eyes fluttered before opening. She jerked and then she moaned out as the pain registered. "Riley?"

"Yeah, it's me partner." Buffy tried to move again but he put a hand down on her shoulder gently. "Don't move. There's people coming for you. You've just got to stay here until we can get out out, okay?"

"Did we get him?"

The question didn't surprise Riley. This woman was a fanatic about the job, and she had been hunting this killer down ever since she'd stood in the first crime scene, the scent of blood and worse in her nose. She stood tough while other cops had been puking their guts out in the bushes near by. She'd put herself in jeopordy without a second thought. This was her job.

"Yeah, you got him. Of course, it took an SUV to finish the job."

"When I get out of this wretched car, I am going to hurt you," she moaned. "He hit me. The bastard. It felt like a goddamn brick. I'm going to kick his ass after yours."

"Hate to burst your bubble here, Buf. But that man is twice, no probably three times, your tiny little size, half pint. I think you might want to wait until you're in better shape." He then laughed as she cursed under her breath. Riley lifted his head at the sounds of sirens coming. It sounded like they'd sent out everything they had. But then again, of course when the call of an officer is down, everyone drops what they're doing and comes running. And this sounded like the enitre east side was on its way.

Riley heard doors slamming then finally saw someone else wiggling around at the driver's side door. "He's cuffed," he said. "And consider him dangerous."

"Is this him?" The man, a paramedic, asked. He'd been at the crime scenes to pick up the dead girls' bodies. "Is this the guy who's been taking out the hookers?"

Riley glared. "Get his ass out of there. I got a cop back here who's hurt. Help her!"

"Well, that told him," Buffy managed to whisper. Her voice was weak and she was starting to shake. "Next time, you get to wear this outfit, Riley. My ass wants to sit in the van."

Riley looked down at her. The outfit in question was ripped and bloody. "Yeah, I don't think either of us are going to be wearing it." He looked her over better and then laughed. "And I do hate to break it to you, Buffy, but those shoes are a loss."

"Well damn," she breathed out. "And here I was wanting to borrow them for my next date."

Riley smiled, shifting out of the way as the paramedic came back with a backboard and big neck collar. "Nice outfit, Detective," he said with a laugh.

"And he's third," Buffy stated.

"Do you have any pain in your neck, in your back? Can you move your feet?"

"She's hurting all over," Riley said. "Get her out of here."

"You know, this would be easier on all of us if you would climb back out of there and wait outside." He kept an eye on Riley as he scooted out, muttering curses under his breath. His attention went back to Buffy, watching her eyelids flutter as he put the collar on her. "Come on now, Detective. Try and stay with me." He lowered her back down after finishing with the collar. "I don't want you to try and move, okay? You just try and relax, let me do all the work."

* * *

After some struggling and some curses coming from Buffy, she was strapped to the board and on her way out of the beaten up car. She could hear Riley as he shouted out orders, calling for a crime scene unit. Then he was next to her again, holding her hand. "Hey partner," he said softly. "I need to get one of these set ups for the next time I tell you to do something and you don't." Riley eyed the board, the collar, the braces tying her head down. "Maybe then you might have some respect for orders from a superior officer."

They loaded her onto a hurney and on into an ambulance. When Riley tried to get in with her, the paramedic that he'd bullied got in his face. "You're going to have to follow us." He said the name of the hospital then waved for his own partner, slamming the doors almost in Riley's face.

* * *

The trip felt like it took forever. And when the back doors opened, she found Riley there. He had appropriated a black and white from somewhere and had managed to even beat the ambulance there, much to the chagrin of the paramedic who was not on his side tonight. He took her hand as they rushed through the doors. He would have followed her into the curtained off area too, but he'd ran into a brick wall. By that, a nurser who was built like an entire defensive line of a college football team had stopped him. "There's a waiting room. It's down the hall. To the right."

Riley got out his badge, flashing it at her.

The nurse crossed her arms over her massive breasts, staring him down. "Waiting room," she repeated, never once raising her voice. She then pointed. "It's down that hall right there, to the right. There's even a coffee machine inside."

Riley gave up, heaving out a huge sigh. "Could you let the doctor know I'm out here waiting?"

At her nod, he trudged off, checking his pockets for some change to get some coffee.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two:

Dr. Angel McKenna gave a longing gaze toward the lumpy, hard couch that inhabited one corner of the doctor's lounge. It was a piece of furniture that he had intimate knowledge of, having spent many long nights trying to get comfortable enough on it for a nap. Tonight though, he didn't think it would take too much. This had been a killer of a week. A flu bug was keeping a lot of the staff at home, leaving them at a skeleton crew. Which was not a good thing for a major metropolitan hospital. With his iron constitution, Angel had been immune to this virus and had ended up working doubles all week.

Not that he was going to complain about the money he was pulling in from it though. There were school loans he'd almost-finally-paid off, rent, and what he was trying to put aside for the little house he'd found just outside of time and that all ate up most of his salary. And to think his parents had wanted him to become a octor so that he would never know the scrimping and saving as they'd had ... that was laughable.

Angel shook his head, clearing the cobwebs, and went back to work on updating files. Paperwork sure was a pain in the ass.

* * *

Angel signed the last form he needed to, glanced overat the clock, then started over to the hard couch in the corner. He had about an hour free and a power nap sounded pretty amazing right about now.

Angel laid down, beating a spring that wanted to pop up into his back, set the alarm on his cell phone and closed his eyes. He sighed, pleasure seeping through him at just being able to lay still for a while, to relax. And he was just this side of sleep when he heard his name being paged over the loud speaker, a code following alerting him that he was needed in Emergency.

Cursing only took up more time and energy, but Angel did a little of it anyway as he grabbed is white coat off of the back of the chair he'd been sitting it. He scooped up his stethoscope to hang around his neck and was out the door before the page repeated.

Angel pushed through the heavy double doors that kept the Emergency area separate from the rest of the hospital and turned through another set of doors that took him over to the curtained areas. He noticed a police officer standing at attention outside one of the cubicals. He was about to swing in there when a nurse caught his attention.

"Dr. McKenna. Curtain three please."

He was the diminutive figure that was surrounded by hospital personnel and thought they had a child at first. Then he grew closer and the curves and swells of a nicely built female made themselves known under the light sheet she was currently covered with. Angel pushed closer, angling so he was next to her and looked down.

Thick blonde hair was cut to curve next to her face in whisps that seemed to point toward huge emerald colored eyes. Her brows arched above them, currently drawn together in pain. She had a pretty face, smooth skin, a lush mouth completing the picture. A nasty sweeling bruise marred her porcelain skin across one cheekbone and down to the corner of her mouth. There was a gash just above on of her temples that had bled down onto her face. One nurse was cleaning that, another was taking her vitals.

"Doctor, this is Buffy Summers. Her blood pressure is 128 over 88, her pulse 76. She was in a car accident." The nurse made a tsk tsking sound. "She wasn't wearing a seat belt."

"Well, now, Miss Summers. Let that be a lesson to you." Angel leaned over and played a pen light over her eyes, calling out his findings as he did his exam.

Angel was a well loved member of the Emergency room. At least by most of the nurses. Even the ones who didn't like him at least respected him for the job he did. He was known for his courtesy towards the nursing staff and a genuine acknowledgement of appreication for the jobs that they did. That alone made him a favorite. Then add into that a tall, muscled body, thick dark hair and melted chocolate eyes that gleamed with intelligence. He had strong cheekbones and a strong jaw. When he smiled, white teeth flashed and women had been known to take third and fourths looks his way. He was known to get lots of cookies and other types of goodies from the ladies he cared for. Be them old or young. Angel McKenna treated everyone the same.

And now, he beamed his famous smile down at Buffy. "We're going to get some xrays done, Buffy. And then I am going to have you admitted to the hospital. Only overnight," he added at the look he saw in her eyes.

"Can't you just give me something for the pain, slap a band aid on me and let me go? I have work to do." Buffy dated hearing the whine and weakness in her voice ... but she hated hospitals a whole lot worse.

"How about we make a deal?" Angel took her hand, slid his down to her wirst and checked her pulse himself. "We go get those xrays done, stitch up that forehead of yours, and we can just go from there?" And while he waited for her to answer, an answer that he had no intention of paying attention to anyway, he signaled to one of his nurses.

The nurse put down the shoe that she had been toying with and went to a phone against the wall. She picked it up and made the arrangements for Buffy to be shipped down to xray.

The shoe on the tray caught Angel's eye. It had a spiked heel, was a least four inches of that said heel, with an intricate weave of straps. The size of it was tiny. And it was shoe made to imply sex. Was it a shoe this young woman had been wearing? He studied her face, feeling intrigued. She just didn't strike him as the type who would want to twist her feet up in a shoe like that. But then again, what the hell did he know about types?

"I don't know how I am getting anything out of that deal," Buffy said. She felt tired and she hurt. All she wanted to do was have people stop poking and prodding at her, to go home to her tiny apartment and go to bed. A few hours of sleep and then she would be fine. She would be ready to go, to do her reports, take their suspect into interrogation and to break him. And she almost smiled at the thought of sitting across from him, of winning.

"Well, Buffy, I am not calling up to request a room for you right away. I am going to let these nurses get you all unstrapped from this contraption and sent down to xray. I don't think anything is broke, especially since you wiggled all the right extremities at all the right times." Angel smiled down at her, pushing the hair out of her face, away from the gash that was still leaking blood.

Yummy, Buffy thought. With a smile and a face like that she knew he could be making some serious money in front of a camera. More than behind a stethoscope. He was tall, tanned, dark and looming. All of that added up trouble for her.

Buffy let out a sighed. She was more tired and hurt than she'd thought if she was going to be having those kind of thoughts. Maybe she could just lay here, let them poke at her. Just until she was sure her brain wasn't completely scrambled anyway.

Hands were unbuckling straps and pulling away blocks when he walked away from her. He patted her small foot in passing and turned as the sheet was pulled off of her. Normally patients were in hospital gowns when he reached this area, but the back board and straps that had kept her immobile had hampered the nurses somewhat, so he'd arrived before they could change her.

Angel's eyebrows winged up at the sight of her slender legs, the tiny leather skirt that was ripped at the side, showing off a lot of smooth skin and a firm stomach that disappeared beneath another piece of leather. This one was almost too miniscule to hide her breasts underneath. The shoe had been a surprise, this outfit a shock. And as he walked away, the imaged stayed in his mind, making him grin a little.

He was heading toward another curtain, getting ready to stop by the uniform standing outside of it when he was stopped by the floor's largest nurse, one he secretly referred to as Nurse Tackle, stopped him. "That girl who was in the car accident? Her man is out in the waiting room. Wanted me to let you know."

Angel thanked her then glanced into the curtained room as he walked by. A huge man was sitting silently on the gurney, his hands cuffed to the bed rails. He just sat there, staring out with eyes that had all the warmth of a shark. Every few seconds he seemed to lift his hands and shook them, making the cuffs rattle and clang against the metal of the rails. He seemed to sense Angel's presence and stopped for just an instant, long enough to lock a gaze in with the doctor. Then he was back to staring off into space.

Angel turned away, heading out to talk to this man of Buffy's. Who was he? Husband? Brother? Pimp? Lover? He wondered to himself.

If she were a prostitute like her outfit would suggest, he knew she was just wasting herself out there on the streets. With that face, beautiful as she were, and with the body of a siren ... she could charge what she wanted, when she wanted. She could be set up some place like New York catering to all the rich, all the famous men. If this was going to ber pimp out here, she sure needed to find herself a new manager.

Angel pushed through the doors to the waiting room and stopped dead. He'd expected a single man to be sitting out here, waiting, but the room looked liek a coffee shop at shift change. There were more cops in here than he could ever remember seeing at one time before.

One man got up upon seeing him. He pushed through the crowd od cops who became eerily quiet when they saw the scrubs. "How is she?" he asked when closer.

Angel noticed the blood still on this man's hands. The scratched he'd had to have gotten in the accident. And then it all clicked. She had to be a cop, an undercover cop. And that made him grin. "She's fine," he started. "Buffy is very unhappy to bere though. I'm sending her down for some xrays but from what I can tell, the most she had is a minor concussion, some bumps and bruises. I'm concerned about the bruise on her side, just wanting to make sure there's no cracked ribs. And we're going to be keeping her for some observation."

"But she is okay?" Riley just needed to hear the words.

"You are?" Angel asked.

"I'm her partner, and I'm about the only thing she has like family around here."

Angel nodded. "She'll be fine. I want to give her some time after the xrays and then we're admitting her."

"Can I see her?"

"After she gets back from xray. I will send someone out here to get you."

Riley grabbed his hand, shaking it enthusiastically. Then he turned to the waiting room and said to everyone "Told you all, she's too damn stubborn to be hurt too bad."

Angel smiled at the subdued cheer that went through the waiting room. Before he could turn though, his arm was grabbed.

"There was a man brought in, right before Buffy. How's he doing?"

"The man cuffed to one of our beds?"

Riley nodded.

"Haven't gotten to him yet, but he's next in line. I will let you know." Angel accepted the card Riley handed him and then left the waiting room. He hurried back to the ER and nodded at the uniform in the doorway.

The man sitting on the gurner had a large bump on his forehead, his nose was a bloody mess, and he didn't ackowledge his presence. He just contined to stare, rattle his cuffs.

Angel picked up the file that had been started on the man. It contained some basics such as the information that could be taken off of a driver's license and not much else. "Mr. Walsh," Angel said in greeting, glancing again at the sketchy file.

The man didn't as much as look at him.

Angel got closer, taking out his pen light to look at the man's pupils. "Do you have a headache?" He got no answer but a rattle and clank. Angel marked down what he saw in the file. He could have a nurse in here, an orderly or even an intern but he didn't trust this guy. Thre was just something in his eyes when he looked at you. Angel gently pushed the flesh around the bruised eyes, checking for breaks then cleaned up his nose and bandaged cuts and bruises he had.

All without a single sound for the patient.

He couldn't blame the uniforms inside the curtain for the nerves rolling off of them. They were standing on either side of the gurney, hands resting lightly on their guns.

"Do you have any pain, Mr. Walsh?" Clank, rattle in response. Angel sighed. "Alright then, Adam. I can't do anything more for you if I don't know what hurts." Clank, rattle. Angel started picking up the tray that had some bloody guaze on it and started to walk away.

"Doctor."

Angel turned back, setting the tray down on the counter closest to the entrance. "Yes?"

"I have broken my right forearm."

Angel called for a nurse to get someone from xray to come up here with a portable machine. He would do the film himself rather than put one of his people in harm's way.

* * *

After the pictures were taken, involving lead vests for himself and both of the cops in the room and removing one of the cuffs. He got to work in setting the break and casting the arm. When he went to inject his patient with a local anesthetic, the man stopped him. "Okay," he said, "But I warn you, this is going to be painful."

Angel set the arm, hearing the man let out a grunt. He looked up to see a smile that was almost feral in nature on his face. Angel brushed it off, continuing with the cast.

Angel was setting aside the last of the tape and turning from the patient when he heard a grunt. A hand came out and wrapped around his neck the best it could, fingers wrapping around his throat and squeezing. "Tell them to unlock the other cuff, Doctor. I really don't want to, but I am fine with ripping your throat out."

Angel glared. The officers in the rool pulled their weapons out. "Let him go."

"Unlock the cuff and I will walk out of here. I will let the good doctor go as soon as I am away."

"Not going to happen. Let him go."

Angel could see the bigger of the two cop's finger on the trigger of his gun. The huge thing looked capable of putting a hole the size of a cannon ball in someone.

Just then, Nurse Harmony Kendall, who was a beautiful, big breasted blonde who was good at her job but otherwise a walking bubblehead walked past the doorway carryng a metal tray of instruments. She glanced in, curious to what all the gossip in the cafeteria was about. She gsaw the guns, the drop dead handsome Dr. McKenna with a hand on his throat. And Harmony did what any good bubblehead would do when confronted with such a situation. She dropped the tray with a huge clang, slapped both hands to her cheeks like that kid in Home Alone, and sh let out a shriek that could be heard in the employee parking lot on the other side of the building.

And then, of course, she fainted.

As soon as she dropped the tray, Angel felt the fingers on his Adam's Apple loosen. When she had screamed, he pushed on the large hand on him, plowing one ightly fisted hand into the man's groin. Then he turned, and using the forward momentum of his foe, plowed a fist into the other man's face. He felt the satisfying crunch of the already broken nose shatter all the more.

Adam Walsh fell to the floor. He slumped, unconscious. His manacled wrist was still secured to the bed rail.

Angel backed away as the police came forward and rigged a new cuff to fit over the cast Adam Walsh now wore. He started to go for Harmony but saw one of the orderly's picking her up and a nurse stacking the instruments back onto the tray she'd been carrying. So instead, he found the rolling stool nearby and took a seat. Adrenaline was making his pulse race. He looked down at his bruised knuckles and smiled. "I haven't done that since college." He cleared his throat and shook his hand carefully making a fist. "I forgot how much it hurts."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three:

If one more person came in here with a fake cheery smile on their face and asked how are we feeling, she might shove an IV stand down their throat.

How was she suppose to feel? She'd gotten knocked around by a serial killer, thrown around by a huge black sedan and smashed into by a SUV. She felt like shit. She had bruises on top of bruises. She felt aches in places that she didn't know could ache. And, knowing how bruises and aches went, she didn't doubt that she would feel worse tomorrow.

She heard footsteps and then someone pushing through the curtained doorway. "I don't want any more pain killers. Ask me again and I'll probably shove that syringe up your ass," she said tiredly and without looking.

"Okay, save all the good drugs for Riley. So noted." He grinned as she turned her head to scowl at him

"Did you come to give a lame try at being funny or to spring me from this place?"

"Lame? I'm hurt." He place one hand on his chest and schooled his features in a wounded expression.

"You couldn't be hurt with a jackhammer."

He grinned cockily. "Thanks. Now, I have good news and bad news ... which would you like first?"

She shifted uncomfortably on the narrow hospital bed and then cursed the paper gown that got caught and pulled every time she moved. "Good news," she grumped.

"We got him, Buffy. Nailed him."

"Yeah?" she grinned herself.

"Oh yeah. You should have seen the evidence in the car. He had souvenirs in a box in the car. They spilled all over the inside. Plain sight. We got just cause for a search warrant for his residence." He rubbed his hands together in glee. "And as soon as he wakes up, I'm taking him into interrogation. I'll break him and then he'll be put away for the rest of his life."

Buffy's smile slipped somewhat. She tried to ignore the feeling of disappointment. What should she be disappointed about? They had him. She just hated the idea that she wouldn't be in that room with Riley when he went at their suspect.

RIley saw the look. "Oh, honey." He rubbed his hand over hers. "I'd wait until you got out of here and could go back to work, but looking at you, it could be awhile."

"What did you mean, when he woke up?"

"Ahh, you didn't hear about the excitement around here. Must have slept right through it." He waited, knowing she'd bark at him.

"Slept through what? Damn it, Riley. You know I hate it when you do this."

"Your doctor punched out our suspect."

Buffy had an impression of compassionate brown eyes, a slow deep voice and gentle hands. He didn't seem like the type to punch someone. "Why did he go that?"

"Well, I guess he didn't like having fingers wrapped around his throat. The suspect tried to get away using the good doctor as a hostage."

"And he punched him out?"

"Yeah, I did."

Buffy tried to look past her partner toward the doorway. Riley moved just enough to block her vision until the doctor came in and stood next to the bed across from him. Dr. McKenna was sporting a couple of nice bruises on his neck that kind of looked like hickeys and kept flexing his hand like it hurt.

"First time that I have hit someone since college.

"It's just like riding a bike," RIley said and grinned at the doctor. "You just never forget how to do it."

"True. I just messed his nose up a little more and he'll probably need to sit on an ice pack for a couple of days. I don't know who hit him the first time, but they did a pretty impressive job. That man is built like a granite mountain."

"That would be your patient. She got in the first swipe."

"Hey, the patient is awake and right here, guys," she grumped, annoyed with being talked about. "And the ass deserved it. He had my gun pointed at my head."

Angel turned his surprised eyes down at the petite form all but swallowed by the hospital gown. "And how did you manage to not get shot?"

Riley laughed. "She had a little help from an SUV, Doc."

Buffy glared at him. "Don't mind him, Doctor. Too much time in the sun broiled what little brain he had."

Angel shook his head at the play between the two of them. "If you two are through poking at each other..."

"Yeah, Buf, you're sick. Lay there and be sick."

"That's it, you don't exist." She tried to cross her arms in front of her and hissed at the aches that it caused.

"You're beautiful when you mad, partner."

"When I get out of this bed, you're toast. Burnt toast." She glared at him and then turned her face to the other side to face Angel. "When will that be, Doc?"

"No broken bones, but those ribs are pretty bruised," he flipped open the chart at the bottom of the bed. "As you are finding out since you have refused all pain killers. Your going to be pretty sore today and worse tomorrow. Mild concussion but if you have someone at home to keep an eye on you, I can let you go today."

Riley opened his mouth but she beat him to it. "Yeah, I got someone that I can have come over and keep an eye on me. Just let me out of this place."

Riley opened his mouth again and then shut it when she shot him a fulminating glare. "Uh, yeah."

Angel eyed them both. "Sure?"

"Yes," they both said at once.

"Okay, I'll have the nurse bring in the discharge slips and a prescription for some pain killers. You also need to follow up with your regular doctor in a couple of days." He slid the end of the chart over the foot of the bed. "Do yourself a favor, Buffy. Take the pills if you need them. Those ribs are going to hurt like a bit-well pretty bad for a couple of days."

Buffy just nodded, knowing she probably wouldn't even get the prescription filled. She knew how easy it was to get addicted to pain pills, had seen first hand what that addiction could do to a person. Instead, she would just get busy with work. She was sure she could get on her feet and be there for the interrogation of their suspect. And she couldn't wait to walk into that tiny, hot room and see him shackled to the table. She wanted the satisfaction of seeing his face when he realized a woman had brought him down.

Angel saw the smile on her face and almost shivered at the look in her eyes. "I bet you're a damn good cop," he said before he turned around to leave the room.

* * *

"You are not going into interrogation. No way." He shook his head as she gazed at him innocently. "No fucking way. You should stay in the hospital at least a day and take a week off to get better. You can't possibly be thinking of going in to work."

"Why not? Just think of how demoralizing it will be to our suspect when I walk in there. Remember the profile, Riley. He hates women, he thinks we're inferior. Just imagine how it's going to grind him to have been brought in by a woman."

"Why not?" Riley was incredulous. "How about the fact that you were just in an accident that could have killed you. You have burns on your face from gun shot residue, which means that damn gun had to be right in your face when it went off. You had half of the cops in the city in here half the night praying for you. And, you're in pain even if you won't admit to it. You're going home, going to get into bed and not move." He waggled his finger in her face. "Otherwise, I'm going to go have a word with that Dr. McKenna and let him know just how full of shit you are."

Buffy gaped at him, then- and if anyone had told her that she was doing it, she would have decked them-pouted. "Fine."

"Good girl. I'll go see what I can do about some clothes for you. The undercover outfit is a complete loss."

"Thank God."

He laughed and started heading towards the exit.

"Wait."

He turned and raised one blonde brow.

"What was the bad news?"

"Oh," he took a couple steps back toward her. "There's just this little thing from last night." He carefully grabbed the front of her paper gown and got into her face. "If you ever disregard a direct order from a superior officer again, this officer will be more than happy to bust your ass all the way back down to beat cop. Got it?"

"But..."

"No buts, Buffy. Yes or no. Got it?"

"Yes, sir. I just have one thing to add."

He let go of her. "Fine, go ahead."

"I just wanted to remind you that you're about five minutes superior to me, so don't threaten me buddy or you'll be in this bed instead of me."

They glared at each other in understanding.

"I'll go get you something to wear."

* * *

Buffy closed the front door of her apartment in Riley's face, ignoring his suggestion that maybe he should come in and stick around for just a little while.

She wanted a hot bath, food, and a few hours in bed in whatever order they happened to come in.

It wasn't the first time that she had been hurt in the line of duty, or the first time she'd been taken to the hospital. But this was the first concussion she'd gotten and she didn't like the way the room tilted or the way her head hurt.

She dragged the borrowed surgical scrubs off of her sore body as she headed through the tiny crowded living room and down the hall past her spare room which she had made into a workout/study room to where her bedroom was. The bed wasn't made, clothes were scattered on the floor. She had more dirty clothes than clean ones at the moment. Her one plant was dying from neglect. There was a thin coating of dust over everything. Damn, she had been living, breathing, eating this case since the first body was discovered all those months ago. And in the mean time, everything else suffered. She hadn't even called her parents in a month, which had been brought to her guilty attention by a voice mail from her mother.

She made her way into the bathroom, standing shakily on one foot than the other while she pulled the hospital slippers off her feet. Then she bent over and turned on the water in the big claw foot tub. She threw in some of the bath salts her mother had sent her for Christmas and turned on the radio next to the sink for some background noise.

She almost groaned when she heard the radio announcer. She had dated him for a few months until she realized that his ego was much bigger than his IQ. And bigger than everything else, too. His show always irritated her but she didn't feel like changing it so she turned it down so it was a steady almost buzz in the background.

She climbed into the water with a slight hiss as the almost too hot water swirled around bruises and bumps and cuts making them sting, then laid back with a sigh and closed her eyes. She could feel herself drifting, enjoying the heavenly gardenia scented steam rising from the water. Her pain sliding into numbness as she floated.

* * *

The big bore of the gun was pointed at her, black and ominous. She couldn't escape it, no matter which way she turned, it was there. She could see the finger tightening on the trigger and knew she had no hope. She saw fire spurting from the end of the gun, heard the thunderous roar of the projectile.

And she woke up sputtering, the water growing cold around her. Her head was throbbing in counterpoint to her racing heart. She was shivering.

Buffy wiped wet hands across her face and then levered herself up from the tub. Her muscles rebelled, her side screamed and she almost fell back into the tub but finally she was able to reach for the towel and wrap it around her. She just stood there, staring at her reflection in the big mirror over the sink behind a thin layer of mist.

She looked half dead. The weight she had lost during the case had hollowed out her cheeks which were now pale and drawn. Her eyes were huge and haunted and full of pain. Dark shadows had taken up semi permanent residence under her eyes. The left side of her face was one huge bruise, her lip was split and slightly swollen. She had scratches and bruises running down her right arm from being tossed around in the car. She opened the towel and looked at the huge bruise that wrapped around her side. She was lucky she hadn't broken anything.

No wonder everyone thought she should have stayed in the hospital. She looked like the poster child for spousal abuse.

She let the water out of the tub, turned off the radio and went looking in her bedroom closet for clean clothes. An old pair of sweat pants and a tee shirt that should have been thrown out years ago were the best she could find that would be loose enough to not hurt. She scrounged up a pair of heavy socks for her cold feet.

She'd just ran a brush through her hair, swearing when it hit the bump on the side of her head, when someone knocked at her door.

"God, Riley. Take a fucking hint. I don't need a babysitter," she said as she headed towards the door. She turned the knob. "Would you please just go the fuck away. I don't need you he-" her words trailed off as the door opened and she saw who was standing outside it.

"Uh, Doctor... , " she searched her mental files, "McKenna. What are you doing here?"

He held up the bag bearing the name of the pharmacy at the hospital. "You didn't take your prescription with you so I went ahead and had the hospital pharmacy fill it for you."

Buffy looked at the bag but didn't take it. "You didn't need to do that."

"I know, but you're going to need them." He looked her up and down. She was smaller than he had thought. Her hair was wet, clinging in damp strands to her face. She was wearing sweat pants that she had rolled the waist band down and the legs up and an ancient tee shirt that was way too big. She had tied it at the small of her back to make up for the extra material. She looked ... cute, he thought. Like someone's kid sister. She certainly didn't look like a seasoned homicide detective.

Buffy reluctantly took the bag from his hand. Manners dictated that she invite him in for coffee or something. Manners were something her mother had enforced with an iron hand and a wooden ruler. She looked at the disreputable state of her apartment and cringed. "Would you like to come in?" she asked unenthusiastically.

Angel almost chuckled. He'd had more congenial offers from his worst enemies. He could have just left the prescription and gone, had been arguing with himself about it the entire cab ride here. But something had him pausing. "Sure, thanks." He ducked by her and studied the room he stepped into. It was small, crowded with books and, he noted with amusement, teddy bears. There were dirty cups stained with old coffee littered about on the end tables, a pile of unopened mail graced the coffee table and spilled onto the floor, dirty clothes were thrown over the back of the couch and in one of the chairs.

"Uh, excuse the mess," Buffy said slipping by him, embarrassed, and picked up some of the dirty clothes so he could sit down. "I've been kind of caught up on this case and," she stood in the middle of the living room floor, arms loaded. "Well, I guess I kind of let everything else go." She nodded toward the big cushy chair that sat in one corner. "Would you like some coffee?" Even as she asked, her scattered mind tried to remember if she had any left. She hadn't been to the store for weeks either. She hurried into her bedroom and dropped the load on the floor then back into the living room while she wondered what she was going to do with him.

He was still standing where she left him, looking at the few framed photos she had on her wall. He handed her a Styrofoam cup. "Chamomile tea. You don't need the stimulants."

She accepted the cup, flustered. "Do you do this for all your patients?"

"Uh, actually, no." He ducked his head and then sat on the edge of one of the couch cushions. "It was an impulse. I saw the prescription form when I got off work and couldn't seem to stop myself." He grinned up at her and took another cup of tea out of his jacket pocket. "I kind of figured you wouldn't have anyone here."

Buffy sat down in the overstuffed chair and took the lid off the cup of tea. She sipped it, grimacing at the flavored hot water taste of it. "I hate hospitals," she shrugged and then hissed as muscles protested.

"I got that part. A lot of people do."

She looked him up and down. "Did you really punch him out?" she asked.

"With a little help from one of the nurses who picked just that time to scream hysterically and distract the guy." He fisted his hand again, bringing it to her attention.

"You should actually ice those knuckles." She sat her cup down and took his hand in hers, missing the startled look in his eyes. "Skins not broken."

He turned his hand over in hers and examined her knuckles. "Yours aren't even bruised."

She took her hand back, ignoring the flutter in her stomach. "I used the heel of my hand, Doc. Saves on the knuckles." She showed him, stopping the blow mere inches from his face. "Works just as good."

"Remind me never to piss you off." He picked up a fuzzy gray teddy bear that sat next to her in the chair. Then he looked at her, eyebrow cocked.

She grabbed it away from him, the skin that wasn't bruised on her face turning red. "Tell one person that you like teddy bears and look what happens." She hugged the bear to her stomach.

She looked all of ten years old in the too big clothes, cuddling the teddy bear. Unless you looked a little closer and noticed the taut curves of her breasts, her tiny waist line. Either way, she didn't look like a cop.

Buffy felt his eyes on her and wanted to squirm. She never felt like this. She was always in control. She was the one that made others squirm. That he could do this to her was unnerving enough to make her stutter. "I ... I uh ... Need to ask a favor." Her voice shook a little, irritating her even more. She stuffed the bear back onto the overstuffed chair and crossed her arms in front of her.

He took a sip of his quickly cooling tea. "Okay?"

"Clear me so I can go to work." She said it quickly, all in one big breath and then sat back and waited.

"You must have hated that," he said, staring at her face. Her lips were drawn tight, a scowl of disgust in her eyes. There was a tiny line between her eyes and he had a sudden urge to reach out and trace it with his thumb, smooth it away.

She tipped her head to the side in confusion. "Hated? Hated what?"

"Having to ask to do your job."

She heaved a huge sigh and seemed to almost deflate into the chair. "Yeah, it was that noticeable?"

"Only if someone was looking." He handed her back the cup she had put on the coffee table. "Drink your tea."

She took a sip of tea, hardly realizing that she was doing as he asked. "So?"

"Will you take a pain pill?"

"I don't need on..." The look in his eye shut her up. "Are they mild? I can't do my job if I'm running into walls."

"No, just huge hands." He tipped the cup she held with his finger, peering into it. Just enough left. He picked up the bag, fished out the bottle and opened it, handing her one horse sized tablet. "Very mild, just a little stronger than over the counter. You take this and then I'll only have one other condition."

Buffy glared at the pill but then stuffed in her mouth and swallowed it with some of the now cold tea. "What's the other condition?"

He couldn't believe he was going to say this. He was actually going to do it. "I go with you."

She was shaking her head no before he'd reached the word you. "This isn't a ride along, doc. This is an interrogation. I can't let you in the interview room while we question the suspect."

"No problem. I'll wait for you outside the interview room." He shook his head when she opened her mouth. "That's it, either I go or you might as well climb into bed."

"Fine." She stormed out of the room, mumbling inventive curses in positions that were physically impossible.

He smiled and sat back to wait for her.

She wasn't gone long and was tucking a sage green tee shirt into a pair of faded jeans. Her holster was strapped over that, minus her nine millimeter. It had been taken into evidence since it had been fired. She slid her back up weapon, a smaller nine that she usually kept in a tuck holster at the small of her back, into the holster after giving it a quick check. Her hair was still damp and curled close to her face. She wore no makeup, the bruises standing out against her pale skin.

"Are you sure you want to do this? You look awfully pale."

She refused to tell him about the struggle she'd had putting on her shirt, how hard it had been to raise her arms over her head. "Yeah, I nailed him, I want in on the interview." She picked up a jacket that had been thrown over the back of a kitchen chair and slipped it on, trying not to grimace at the pain because he was watching her.

She held open the door and locked it behind her, before heading to the elevator. Breathing was a little tricky and her holster rubbed up against the massive bruise on her side but she managed.

Her car was still downtown. She went to the curb, stuck two fingers in her mouth and let out a loud whistle.

Angel pushed one finger next to his ear and winced. "Uh, thanks."

She grinned. "Sorry, my car's still downtown. Unless you got a car here, we got to take a cab."

* * *

He held open the door for her and slid in behind her. The trip downtown took no time and soon he found himself in the squalid splendor that was the Tenth Precinct. There was a smell of burnt coffee, unwashed bodies and whatever strong cleaner the cleaning crew used at night. The waiting room was crowded with both cops and civilians, the noise just above a dull roar. Confusion seemed to reign.

Buffy walked past the desk sergeant, stopping only to pick up a visitor's pass for the doctor. She handed it to him, slapping it against his chest without a word.

He clipped it on his shirt, noticing how she squared her shoulders, her stride becoming more purposeful, if that was possible. She walked by uniformed cops in the halls, saying hi but not stopping. He followed her as she pushed through a set of steel gray doors and then flipped through a half door set into another counter. The cop behind the counter took one look at her and glanced at a sheet of paper stuck to a clipboard.

"He's got interview C. They been in there for about ten minutes. Chief is sitting in watching, he ain't gonna be happy to see you."

"Yeah, thanks for the bulletin." She headed down another hallway, almost forgetting anyone was behind her. Her adrenaline was revving.

Angel tried to take it all in, the building hadn't looked this big from the outside. They were in a hallway with closed doors on either side. Every other door was marked as an Interview room with a corresponding letter.

Buffy stopped at an unmarked door, popped her head in. Then she stepped inside and held the door so he could come in too.

* * *

They were in a tiny room, either side was glassed and looked into the interview rooms. There was a tiny table, a shelf under each sheet of glass that held a television screen and a small speaker set into the wall. There were two men in the room, neither looking up when Buffy walked in. She motioned for Angel to stand back and closed the door then stood next to one of the men. "He talking yet?"

"What are you doing here?"

Buffy glanced around the room. "I thought I worked here. This is my suspect, I apprehended him. I do the interview."

The chief drew himself up to his full height. When he went into intimidation mode, he'd been known to back bigger and tougher men down. He'd chew them up and spit them out until they were quivering messes. The man sitting next to him, another detective, took a step back to get out of the battle zone.

"Summers, you are supposed to be in the hospital. I heard that your idiot partner got you out. I'm giving you a week sick leave. Don't let me see you until that day." He made shooing motions toward the door then went back to watching the interview, Buffy dismissed.

"I'm sorry, sir. Respectfully, I have to decline sick leave. I have my doctor here. He is clearing me to come back to work."

The chief turned back toward her, a scowl on his face.

Buffy took a deep breath and waited for the worse.

"Your doctor? You brought your personal physician into an interview room?"

"Yes, sir." She wouldn't back down. "This is my bust, my collar. I worked this case, sir. I spent the past three months living this case." She could feel anger starting and tried to swallow it but it came out anyway. "I wore those damn shoes. I deserve- no, I demand that I be allowed to finish this."

"You demand?" His voice had gone to ice, his tone soft, just above a whisper.

If Buffy weren't so mad herself, she would have realized she was pushing towards the red zone of his temper. "Yes." And almost as an afterthought. "Sir."

There was a little nerve ticking under his right eye. "Get in there. After the interview, I want you and your partner in my office."

"Thank you, sir." She spun quickly and left. It was two steps from the observation room to the interrogation room door. She knocked on the door sharply before coming in. She added a little swagger to her walk, self confidence in her demeanor. "Detective," she said by way of greeting Riley.

His eyes narrowed until they were mere slits in his tanned face. What the hell was she doing here? She could barely walk a few hours ago. Before he could say anything, she pulled out a chair, swung it around and sat down in it, resting her arms on the back of it. Only Riley noticed the slight line of white around her lips from the pain that move had caused. And only because he was looking at her so intently.

"You boys started without me."

"Well, I wasn't sure what time you were going to be in, Detective."

Buffy heard the less than carefully concealed annoyance in her partners voice. She gave him a sunny smile that made her want to flinch from the pain it caused to her bruised face. "So where were we?"

"You've met our Adam Walsh."

"Oh," she fingered the swelling around her eye. "I'd say I've run into him. How are you today, Mr. Walsh? Your nose looks a little painful."

The huge mountain of a man stared straight through her. His eyes were blank orbs.

Riley slid a file across the scarred wooden table to her. She skimmed through it quickly, shaking her head sadly and making little tsk tsking noises under her breath. When she looked up, she barely managed to hide the triumphant grin. They had him cold.

"Adam, you seem like such a bright boy. Why'd you keep all the souvenirs? And leaving them in your car of all places."

RIley tapped one finger on the report before she closed it and slid it back to him. It showed a detailed report of the contents of his house, along with the Prosecuting Attorny's wish for a deal to be made, signed with all the higher ups signatures. "And did you see what the CSI's found at his apartment?"

"Oh yes, Adam, your never going to see the light of day outside of cold gray walls ever again. And, correct me if I'm wrong, partner," she looked up at Riley, her eyes betraying her thoughts of a deal with this monster. She hid it well, doing the job, knowing it would come back to haunt her later. "This is a capital murder offense, multiple counts."

Riley nodded his head. "Yeah, death row, a small square room, one hour a week outside. And those mattresses they have on those bunks. They are just terrible on your back. Not to mention that icy freeze as they pump that drug into your arm." He sat forward and laced his fingers. "You know, they keep that iced just so it hurts when it hits the blood stream. Sadistic, isn't it?"

Adam looked up from where he had been studying his hands cuffed and chained around his waist. "If you have me cold, like you said. Why am I here now?"

Buffy had never heard him speak. His voice surprised. He looked rough, dock worker material. His voice was soft and cultured, almost elegant despite the slight nasal quality from his broken nose. "We found other things in your home, things that lead us to believe you have other victims."

"Yes, so?"

"We want to be able to give their family closure."

Buffy kept her mouth closed. She hadn't been part of this, hadn't known there were others even though she had figured there would have been more. His killing was too precise, too easily done not to have come from practice. So they had decided to deal with him. She felt a tiny little ball of disgust. Lawyers. Cut a deal, get him life in prison. It would have to be enough.

"So, I get offered life instead of the death penalty. But only if I tell you where I hid the bodies. It's all so thrillerish, Detective." He looked at Buffy. "You were prettier as a redhead."

"Ouch, now that just hurts my feelings, Adam." She pulled a strand of silky hair away from her face, pretended to study the color.

"This is a one time offer only, Adam."

Adam Walsh's eyes swiveled back to Riley, stared for a second and then returned to watching Buffy. He seemed fascinated by the way her fingers played with the hair.

Buffy leaned forward a little and combed her fingers through the now dry locks. It was creepy, the way his eyes watched her. If he liked to watch though, she'd handle the creeps and do what she had to do to get what she needed.

"Okay," Adam said. "But I'll only talk to her."

"That's not the way this works."

"It's okay, Ri." Buffy said, interrupting him. "If he wants to tell me, I'll listen. Let's get it set up." She glanced over at her partner, noted the frown in his eyes. "Let's get the equipment set up," she repeated, making sure he got the message in her eyes. She would be fine.

Riley got up and went to the door, pulling it open without a backward glance. He only felt comfortable leaving her in there despite the chains and cuffs on Adam Walsh because he knew they were being watched through the one way mirror. And he knew that Adam knew that too. But he still didn't like it. He didn't like it at all.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four:

Buffy sighed and rubbed the sensitive skin just under the bump on her head trying to soothe away some of the throbbing pain. Two and a half hours she had just spent in a tiny square of a room with a psychopath. Not the ideal text book treatment for a concussion. But maybe it would help her forget the past couple hours.

God, the thought of what she'd had to listen to, of how he spoke would be with her for life. She had watched his face as he described his many victims, the torture methods of killing he had used, the blood and gore he had shed. He was emotionless, passive with about as much passion in his words as she had when she talked getting the tires rotated on her car. He had calmly taken her through a twentysome years career in killing, carefully detailing events psychotic and horrible enough to give her nightmares for weeks. There was none of the glee, the sense of pride that she had acquainted with killers before. He was just reciting facts and figures like an accountant would. In fact, he sounded bored with the whole process.

And she had sat there, just sat there, listening to his accounts with her own implacable expression rigid upon her features, taking notes and asking questions. Just another case to file, another bad guy put away, another deal made. That thought, those words were swimming in her head like a plague.

She felt bile rise in her throat at the thought of the deal she had negotiated with Walsh at the PA's urging, wishing, instead, that she could pull her weapon and put an end to his miserable excuse of a life. It would be like ridding the world of a stray rabid dog. He would never be rehabilitated, he would never feel shame or sorrow for what he had done. And after wading ankle deep in the blood of his murders, she couldn't help but think he'd be better off dead.

But, that wasn't for her to decide. Courts, judges and juries decided guilt and innocence, she just got the criminals off the streets. So she'd sat in that room and she'd managed through sheer will to stay professional. She had hid her intense feelings of disgust for the deadly killer by holding onto what she held dear by the skin of her teeth. She had done the job for the badge and what it stood for. But it cost her, and that cost was dear and almost more than she could take.

* * *

She opened the door to go into the small room that housed the homicide bullpen, a room cluttered with papers on the walls, ancient grey metal desks, filing cabinets, and a table that held a huge coffee maker. She went there first and was just about to pour herself a cup of the thick bitter liquid that cops laughingly described as coffee when a hand gently touched her shoulder.

"You should have water. The caffeine isn't good for that headache."

She closed her eyes and sighed, praying for just a little more strength, before turning toward the good doctor. He meant well, she told herself, even if he was being annoying. "I thought you left."

He took the cup out of her hand, looking into it first with a sneer of disgust at the dank ring that had been etched into it's smooth rim. Then he handed her a bottle of water that was so cold condensation was running down the side and another of the big white pills. "Take that. You look like hell."

She swallowed the pill with her own grimace of disgust. She'd never admit to anyone, not in a million years but they did help her feel better. "Is that your professional or personal opinion, Doc?"

"Let's say both." He grinned that sexy smile at her, the one she was sure melted butter from a mile away. "No charge."

"Thanks," she said. But she couldn't help but smile back at him, despite how lousy she felt. She started over to her desk and felt him behind her. "Please don't take this the wrong way, Doc. I mean I am very grateful for your help in getting me back on the job and dropping off the prescription. But," she smiled again to take the sting out of the words. "Don't you have a home to go off to?"

"Yeah, I do. And I should probably be there, in bed unconscious right now. But sometimes other things are a little more important." He sat next to her cluttered desk in the chair that was bolted not only to the ground but to the desk itself to keep anyone who wasn't happy being there and throwing a tizzy from picking it up and throwing it too.

She plopped down into her chair, grunted at the mess and flipped over a file of old paperwork to make room for her bottle of water. The desk facing hers was empty and she scowled darkly at it.

"He said he'd be back later, had something he had to do. Your partner," he said at her look, nodding at the empty chair. "He was leaving when I came in here to wait for you to get done."

"How long ago?" She glanced at her watch. There was a smear of dark blood on it. She used her thumb nail to scrub at it absently.

"About twenty minutes or so." He studied her drawn features, the bruises standing out colorfully against her pale skin. She looked ready to fall over. "Don't take this the wrong way," he said, throwing her words back at her. "But don't you have a home you should go to before you fall down?"

She managed, barely, to contain her anger. If she didn't feel like death warmed over, she would have laughed at him and then told him where to stick his concern. "Oh I just have a few things to do, like all that nasty paperwork a bust like this is going to generate." She sighed and searched through the mess on her desk for the file she needed, pushing asides stacks of papers, unearthing a half eaten sandwich. She stared at that, wondering when she had gotten it before dumping it plate and all into the trash. "I'm going to be here for a while yet," she continued. "You might as well go home doc. I really do appreciate everything that you've done for me."

He stared at her for a second, his trained doctor's eyes taking notes. She looked terrible, washed out, with black smudges under her eyes almost as dark as the bruises on the side of her face. She had shadows dimming the lustrous green of her eyes caused by pain. Her shoulders were held tight, the muscles in her body rigid against the pain. It made him angry. No, furious, for some reason that he wasn't sure he wanted to explore, that she was willing to jeopardize her health this way. Even though the job she did was important, and she was good at it, she was going to put herself into the hospital with exhaustion. She needed about a week's worth of rest and a vacation and then maybe she'd be fit to come back on the job.

"Dammit, Buffy."

She looked up and met his gaze, stunned by the sudden outburst of someone who had been so calm all this time.

"I'm this close to pulling you out of here. You need to rest. Your going to make yourself seriously ill." He reached out to push her hair from her face again, a gesture that was beginning to feel natural to him.

Buffy glanced around the room cautiously, noting the few detectives that were still in there staring at them, some with smiles, some just curious. "Keep your voice down," she hissed at him, pushing his fingers away from her face. "I don't need the whole department knowing my business."

"Then don't be so damn obstinate. Can't your partner do this paperwork? You need bed and food, not to sit in this place." He could be just as stubborn. All those years of medical school, residency and sick and trying patients had taught him how.

"I took the damn pill. I'll be fine." She cringed at the whine in her own voice and turned back to her desk.

Angel's temper flared further. He rose abruptly with enough force to jar her desk and knock over the bottle of water, which started to drain all over the mess of paperwork. She grabbed for the bottle, righting it quickly, and swiping spilled water off her papers and on to the ugly linoleum floor. "Fine. Just fine. You want to end up back in the hospital, that's just fine with me. But I don't need to sit around here and watch you do that to yourself." He stomped away, resisting the urge to slam a few doors while muttering about stubborn females.

"Sheesh," Buffy mumbled under her breath. "What climbed up his butt and died?" She wouldn't admit to anyone how badly her head hurt, how her ribs ached and exhaustion seemed to pull at her like quicksand, not even to the doctor. And she sure wouldn't admit that she felt guilty for the way he left. He'd been the one doing her a favor. She hadn't meant to piss him off. She was just good at it.

Buffy shook out the few papers that still had a little water on them, making the floor even wetter, then laid them out to dry on top of other stacks. Coffee, she needed coffee. None of this just water business for her. A good shock of caffeine for her system and she would be just fine. If she had coffee, she might be able to put in another hour or so.

She got up, grabbed her cup and filled it with the tar that cops drank before going back to her desk and once more looking for the file.

She was so caught up in what she was doing, she jumped when a large plastic bag was dropped abruptly on top of the paperwork she was looking at.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

She looked up at Riley as he towered over her, doing his best to be intimidating. "Working, what the hell are you doing?"

"I went out to the lab and picked up your stuff." He indicated the plastic bag. "I thought you might like to have your badge back."

She picked up the plastic bag and opened it, pulling out a pair of handcuffs, her wallet which included her badge and her nine millimeter plus clips. Running her hands lovingly over her weapon, she could have kissed him right then. "Thanks, partner. They finished with this so soon?" She slid the gun and clips into her briefcase that was still sitting next to her desk from last night, with a mental note to clean it when she got home. The rest went into the pockets on her jacket.

"Yeah. I got some of the reports too." He lifted her chin with his finger and looked into her eyes, wincing at the pain he could see there sitting hand in hand with exhaustion. "Listen, Buffy. If I agree to sign an affidavit that swears you are one mean bitch cop, the best cop I've worked with bar none, will you go home?"

She jerked away from his finger, knocking his hand aside. "Why does everybody feel the need to tell me I look like shit? I'm fine." She glared up at him, a look that usually had cops shaking in their boots. "Okay?"

Riley walked slowly away to his own desk that faced hers. He sat down, scooted his chair in and crossed his arms on the scarred gray metal, staring at her in a way designed to make her nervous. She stared right back, refusing to back down.

"Wonder what the chief would say?"

"You wouldn't."

"Wouldn't I?"

She glared at him hotly, not amused by his threats.

He smiled at her, a slow smile that stirred her temper even more. She had a happy visual image of going over to his side of the desk and planting a fist into that smug smile on his rugged face. Maybe a broken jaw would make him feel a little less superior.

"Riley, I got to write up the reports, all the information Walsh had, it's got to turned in. All his murders, the details." She swallowed heavily and shook her head. "He's some piece of work. You wouldn't believe it. He figures he's killed easily close to forty women in five different states." Her hands went to her temples unconsciously and started rubbing. "I sent the tapes down to be transcribed but I've got to do the reports."

"He's not going anywhere. He's wrapped up tight for tonight. You can do them tomorrow after you get a good night sleep." He leaned forward and reached across both desks to grab her jaw, turning it to look at the fierce bruises that had turned black with just hints of blue. "You look like hell, partner. You had a really rough night last night. You were in the hospital, for God's sake. Why don't you just give yourself a break for the rest of today? I promise I won't tell anyone that you're merely human and need to rest like the rest of us." He stood up, letting go of her face, and moved around the desk to sit in the chair that Angel had just vacated. "So, what'll it be? Going home with it being your idea, partner? Or going home with it being the Chief's idea?" He had her and he knew it. He also knew that she would find a way to get payback sometime later.

Buffy gathered up some files, straightening papers automatically before slipping them into her briefcase. Then she glared at him. "Okay, fine. You win. I'll go home so my face isn't around to bother you anymore. I'll just work on this there and type it up in the morning."

Riley shook his head, disgusted. "Couldn't you just leave work here Buffy, just once. Go home and get some rest. Take one of those pills I saw the doc shoving at you and get some sleep."

Buffy remembered her nap in the tub, the dream that had seemed so hideously real. The huge black barrel of the gun pointed at her with no way for her to run. She almost shuddered but managed to control it. Sleep might not be as easy as he thought. "Hey, I'm going home. Don't push your luck." She managed to keep the nerves out of her voice, but barely.

"Come on." He started to take her arm but she pulled away.

"Where do you think you're going?" she asked, suspiciously.

"I'm taking you home."

"I can get myself there. I don't need a damned babysitter."

Riley ignored her sputters and reached down for her briefcase, determination in his movements. "And how are you going to do that?"

"My car is in the parking garage."

Riley saw the stubborn tilt to her chin and knew she was going to dig in her heels. He sighed again, tiredly. His night hadn't been much easier than hers. He'd gone home, slept in his recliner for about an hour, took a shower and came back in to start the ball rolling. His eyes felt like they had sand in them, gritty and rough and his temper was just as short if not shorter than hers. He'd been fine when he walked into his apartment from the hospital, fine until he saw his hands covered with her blood, now dry and almost rusty colored. The sight of that blood had shaken him more than he wanted to admit. He could still hear the frantic sound of her screams, see the vivid image of that truck plowing into her side of the car every time he closed his eyes. His hour of sleep had been restless at best.

If she thought he was going to take crap from her today, she was mistaken.

He took her briefcase from her and started toward the door of the bullpen.

"What are you doing?" She hurried to catch up.

"Walking you out."

She had learned when they first worked together that she took two steps to his one long stride. "Why?" She cringed at the pain in her ribs. "Slow down."

He turned his head and looked down at her. "Why should I slow down? You're fine, remember?"

"God, Riley. Do you have to be such a man right now?"

That stopped him. He turned and almost pinned her to the wall. "Such a man? I am a man, Buffy. Remember?" He glared down at her. "Maybe if you didn't try so hard to be a man yourself, you might notice that." He handed her the briefcase and stormed away without looking back.

Buffy stood there, her mouth open in shock. What the hell had that been about? And that crack, she didn't want to be a man, and she certainly didn't act like one. She shifted the briefcase automatically to her left hand, leaving her right hand free to reach her weapon if necessary.

* * *

She made the trip to her car, a dark blue Ford Mustang, and sighed in relief when she slid into its familiar leather seat. She let her head rest against the steering wheel for just a moment, catching her breath.

Riley.

They had been partners for four years, friends since day one. You trusted your partner, you told him everything. They had hunted killers together, closed cases and had fantastic arrest records. She had stood by him when his divorce had come through. He had brought her chicken noodle soup when she'd come down with pneumonia. They had worked their tails off on this case and now, they had him. Riley should be doing cartwheels, not jumping down her throat.

Her head throbbed in time with her heartbeat, making her feel slightly nauseous. The pain pill the doctor had given her, didn't seem to be helping. She sat up with a sigh and put the key in the ignition, starting the high powered car with a single twist of the key. It roared once then settled into a throaty purr that never failed to tickle her.

She shifted it into reverse and backed out of her spot, determined to go home and work on the case and forgot whatever was wrong with Riley.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five:

Buffy stared grumpily at the doors of the emergency room and wondered for about the hundredth time why she was doing this. She shouldn't be here. She had a whole desk load of backlog to go through and a final statement to prepare for the press on Adam Walsh's arrest. The press release had to get sent to the department's media consultant before she could deliver it and that could take hours. She had way too much on her plate. She shouldn't be standing outside the doors of the hospital at four am. And she sure as hell shouldn't be going inside to see Dr. McKenna again.

She shifted the small white bag that she carried to her other hand and resolutely pushed through the doors quickly before she could change her mind. He had done her a favor and she repaid her debts. She only wanted to thank him for what he had done for her. Nothing more, nothing less.

The harsh cleanser smell of disinfectant invaded her nostrils, making her cringe. She hated the cloying smells of hospitals almost as much as she hated staying in them. There was something about that smell that reminded her too much of sickness and death. Natural death, old age death, the kind that took forever to kill you, left you dependant on others, and shamed you by leaving you weak and helpless.

Another bad thought, old age. She hoped she took a bullet before she was old enough to sit in some geriatric home, boring the socks off of everyone with stories about "the good old days" when she was a cop. She didn't want to be ninety, wearing a diaper and gumming her food, waiting for the end because that was all there was left to look forward to.

She stopped at the admittance desk and waited for the nurse standing there to notice her.

It didn't take long before the overworked woman looked up from the notes she was scribbling. "Can I help you?"

Buffy pulled her badge, flipping it open so the nurse could see her identification as well. "I'd like to see Dr. McKenna if he has a minute."

"Ah, certainly. Detective? Is it?"

Buffy nodded and the nurse picked up the phone and paged the doctor.

Within minutes he was pushing through the gray doors that separated Emergency from the other areas of the hospital his white doctor's coat flapping around his blue surgical scrubs. His eyes widened when he recognized her, then narrowed suspiciously.

"Hello Detective." He held out his hand warily.

Buffy took it, amazed that she hadn't remembered just how good looking he was. Or maybe she had and that was why she had been so nervous about coming here. "Doctor."

Her hand seemed small and almost childlike in his. And even dressed in jeans and a tee shirt, a light jacket concealing the gun he knew she wore, she still looked too young for the responsibility he knew she carried on her slim shoulders. And beautiful, too. He found himself staring into her eyes, thickly lashed and almost impossibly green.

She was the last person he would have pictured to voluntarily come here looking for him. Especially after the way he had walked out on her those days ago when she had so sorely pissed him off. He had thought about her though. He had wondered about her, had been concerned, wishing he knew if she had seen her own doctor, taken the pain killers he had prescribed. And had wondered why he cared at all. She was just one of a million patients that walked or rolled into his life through the emergency room doors.

"What can I do for you, Detective?" He let his eyes roam over her once, only letting her see the detached medical professional in his eyes, not the very interested, very intrigued man. "You certainly look better than the last time I saw you."

"Actually," she cleared her voice to get rid of the little hitch his presence always seemed to bring. "I wanted to thank you for all your help."

He shrugged and glanced around noting the interest in the hospital personnel pretending to be busy. "All part and parcel of the service, Detective. How about I buy you a bad cup of coffee and we can discuss my bill?" he offered grinning down at her. He took her elbow and steered her out of range of curious eyes and headed down towards the cafeteria.

* * *

At this time of early morning, the service part of the cafeteria was shut down leaving a handful of machines to deal with the needs for coffee, soft drinks and snacks. Angel plugged in quarters and ordered the coffee, pulling the flimsy cups out of the machine as they filled. He gestured to one of the empty tables and sat her coffee in front of her.

She took a sip and grimaced. "It is pretty bad." She took another sip and sat the cup aside, realizing she still had a death grip on the white bag. "Here." She slid the bag hurriedly across the table to him, catching a hint of surprise in his eyes before he grabbed it.

"A present?" He opened the bag, smelling chocolate before it unraveled.

"Double chocolate brownies."

He pulled one out of the bag and breathed in the scent with an air of appreciation that made a smile curve the corner of her full lips. "No nuts?"

"I didn't know if you liked them or not."

"I do," he said, taking a huge bite. "Fantastic." He swallowed, finishing the brownie with one more bite. He took another then offered her the bag. "Sorry, we had a traffic accident come in and I missed lunch. So what do I owe this treat?"

Buffy took another sip of the sludge from the coffee machine. "I owed you. You got me back to work and," she paused, hating to have to admit this, "the painkillers helped a lot. I wouldn't have had them if you hadn't brought them over."

She'd never forget the day after her accident, the pain that just getting up out of bed had caused her to feel had been almost more than she could bear. Without those painkillers, she'd have been forced to take sick leave that day. The thought of the 'told you so' grin that would have been on Riley's face more than made the brownie's well deserved.

Angel reached out and took the hand that was unconsciously shredding the brownie she had taken to crumbs on a napkin. "These are too good to waste."

The blush that stained her cheeks annoyed her as much as embarrassed her even more. He pulled her hand away from the brownie but kept it in his.

"And if you'd like to thank me, how about dinner?"

WIth that, she felt a sudden spurt of panic. "Uh, dinner?"

Angel smiled which sent a jolt of something else zapping through Buffy's nervous system to twist in her stomach. "You know, two people. Go to a restaurant. Order food. Eat the food." The smile broadened into a grin when he caught her still stupefied look. "I thought we could eat it together."

"Uh." She was out of her element here. It wasn't as if she hadn't gotten asked out before, she had. And she dated, well, she did when her case load allowed. So, okay, that wasn't a lot, she always figured she did the job better than a personal life anyway.

"Buffy?"

She looked up at him. He was still smiling, amused by her. It stiffened her spine and made her just a touch annoyed with him. "Sure. Dinner would be great, Dr. McKenna."

"Angel."

"Dinner would be great, Angel." She found it easy to say his name, liked the way it sounded, too much. The thought was a little disconcerting.

"I'll pick you up, tonight? Is seven alright?" His thumb stroked across her palm in a way the made her twitch a little.

Buffy pulled her hand free, rubbing her tingling palm stealthily against the leg of her slacks, and stood. She felt a bit calmer on her feet, enough so that she faced the look in his eyes and tried to smile at him. "That would be great." Buffy turned and headed toward the door. She was almost through it when she turned her head one more time, wanting another glimpse of the picture he made sitting at the table watching her. "Enjoy the brownies, Doc."

* * *

A serious case of stress and too much coffee had her nerves jumping as she hunted through her wardrobe, searching for something to wear. She'd already pulled out and discarded half of the contents of her closet.

Why hadn't she asked him where they were going?

She finally decided upon a simple black knit dress, sleeveless with a deep scope neck and short hemline that made the best out of her considerable attributes. Slim heels added inches to her small stature and made her legs look sleekly curved miles long.

She grabbed a quick shower, powdered, perfumed and primped quickly in the bathroom then hurried into her bedroom. Her dress was laid out next to the small pile of lingerie.

Lingerie was her weakness, her one true downfall. She couldn't pass a shop without at least gazing wistfully into the windows at the colorful silks, satins, and laces and dreaming of her next pay raise. She tugged on the black, lightly boned, satin teddy, sucking in her breath before fastening it over her breasts. Black silk stockings were rolled into place and then clipped carefully into black garters decorated with tiny white bows. Buffy checked out her reflection, pleased with the way the satin clung.

Satin and silk lingerie was a weapon, a quiet but very powerful weapon for a woman who knew how to use it. It gave a feeling of naughty confidence and an air of femininity to a woman. Even if a man never saw it, she knew she was wearing it.

She pulled the dress on, running her hands slowly down the front to smooth out any wrinkles and to admire the fit. She flipped her head to send her hair scattering in thick wisps around her face in an artful mess before she stepped into the matching shoes. She glanced at the clock on her nightstand. She had just enough time to grab her off duty weapon and her badge and shove them into a tiny black purse, along with some emergency money and her cell phone.

* * *

At precisely seven, the buzzer to her apartment went off. She hit the intercom button and then buzzed him in, opening her door slightly so she could hear the elevator open. Her stomach hummed with nerves and she fought with herself to stay calm. She could handle murder, brutalized bodies, psychopaths with ham sized fists. One night out couldn't kill her.

"Wow."

He stood in the doorway, his eyes slightly glazed as he stared at the picture she made. The black dress did incredible things to her skin, making it seem pale, almost porcelain in it's perfection. The scooped neckline showed off her cleavage, made only more daring by the fit of the satin teddy. The hemline of the dress stopped mid thigh, nothing too daring but, with the added height of the heels, her legs looked as if they'd never stop.

Angel felt his tongue begin to loll out of his mouth and gave himself a mental shake. "You look..." He took two steps forward into the apartment, searching for an adequate word, "amazing," he finally finished.

"Thanks, Doctor." She remembered their last conversation of any length, the one that he had gotten so mad and stomped out of. "Is that a personal observation, or a professional one?"

He laughed, a wicked deep chuckle that tickled her nerves. "Oh this time, I can definitely say it's personal. I'm hoping very personal."

Buffy smiled, hers coy and a little daring, giving him a hint of the impish side of her nature. "We'll just have to see, now, won't we?" She handed him the black jacket that matched the dress and let him help her into it, smiling inside when his hands lingered on her shoulders for an extra second or two.

* * *

When they reached the parking lot, she was in for a surprise. She'd expected a BMW or a Corvette, not the smooth lines of the Grand Prix that sat in her visitor parking space next to her own Mustang. It was a black four door and not even close to a new model.

The man was full of surprises it seemed.

Angel unlocked the car and opened the door for her, closing it behind after ogling the long length of thigh the hemline exposed as she sat. When he got into the car, he didn't start it right off, instead, he reached behind her seat and brought out a small brown paper bag. He sat it in her lap then sat there and watched her stare at it.

"What's this?" She touched the paper gingerly, almost afraid to look inside.

"It's a present, go ahead and open it." He laughed at the look she gave him.

"Oh and you wrapped it so pretty too," she said wryly as she unfolded the top of the bag and peeked inside. She reached in and almost melted as she pulled out a small brown bear with long fur. He had a big black fedora on his head, a trench coat belted at his bearish waist. On one lapel was a five pointed star, a cop's badge. Buffy smiled, set the bear down in her lap and shifted in the seat. His mouth met hers, easily, almost as if they had done this before. The kiss was soft, a beginning of something that Buffy felt was as fragile as happiness. She pulled back a little, staring into those chocolate eyes. "Thank you."

A glint in his eyes, he took another small taste of her lips before sitting back with a sigh. "The pleasure was all mine," he said starting the car.

Buffy sat back in the car watching his hands as he drove. The bear on her lap, she relaxed and watched his hands on the steering wheel, the competent way he drove.

Before she realized, they were pulling into a parking lot and Angel jumped out of the car, pulling open her door. She stood, stooping slightly to set the bear in her seat before turning back to the doctor.

* * *

The restaurant overlooked the water and a marina full of everything from full sized yachts to rowboats. Buffy watched the masts slowly dip and sway with the waves as they were seated close to one of the windows. The sun was still in the sky but slowly lowering, creating intricate shadows along the terrace outside the window.

She took the menu she was offered but didn't open it, looking around, a cop's gleam in her eyes. It was habit, for both cops and criminals. Case a joint, spot the exits, the entrances. Find the restrooms and the kitchen. Check out the other diners, the wait staff. She looked over the hostess, a very tall blonde in a tiny black skirt and tight white blouse that made no bones in declaring that her best assets were in front of her. The bartender, a tall black man with no hair and a shiny head was working calmly and seemed to feel her stare. He looked her way, smiled widely exposing three gold capped teeth in the front of his mouth.

"Ready for the heist Muggsy?"

Buffy smiled ruefully and blushed at being caught. "Sorry," she apologized. "It's habit."

She opened her menu and just as quickly folded it back up, barely glancing at the selections. She took her purse off of her lap and sat it on the table and shrugged out of her jacket, seeing Angel's eyes gravitate to her bare shoulders and below for one admiring minute before returning to her eyes. He seemed about to say something when their waiter appeared to take their drink order.

Buffy was fine with water, and he was the same.

"You're on duty tonight aren't you?" Buffy asked him.

"On call. They final got us back to a full staff so I only have to go in if they get an emergency. You too?"

"The life of a cop, we are always on call. You never know when some hooker killing psycho is going to run amok on city streets and need to be taken down," she said, laughing at herself.

"So that's what the outfit was about." He grinned. "Not that I'm complaining mind you, that just didn't seem like the style you'd particularly wear out. And those shoes..." he paused, remembering the fantasies that had come to mind when he'd thought about those shoes with their incredible "do me" heels.

"I burnt them." She smiled with smug memory at the way it had felt to watch those feet killers go up in flame.

"You didn't?" he asked in horror. He couldn't believe it. He watched his fantasies of her in nothing but those shoes figuratively flare then go up in smoke.

"You sound disappointed, Doctor." Buffy leaned forward, enjoying this play.

Angel's eyes, which had been behaving, well, mostly, strayed down to the front of her dress once more, admiring her lovely curves. "They were nice shoes," he said lamely.

"Well, let me check, maybe I can find them in your size."

He laughed, his eyes meeting hers once more. He'd opened his mouth to continue the banter when the waiter appeared again to take their order. He quickly scanned the menu, making choices for both of them, waiting for Buffy's nod at his choice for her before continuing. The waiter left and the two of them were alone once more. Angel leaned forward and opened his mouth to say something but she never knew what. Almost on cue, the phone in her purse went off.

"I'm sorry," she said, pulling it out and checking the caller id screen. "I have to take this, excuse me." She flipped it open and hit a button, sighing angrily but quietly into the phone. "What is it Riley? And it'd better be good." She listened for a moment and sighed again. "Sure, but can't you..." Another moment. "Yeah, but..." Riley interrupted. "I know, but what about..." she finally gave up. "Fine, let me catch a cab and I'll be there in ten minutes. What's the address again?"

Angel had been unashamedly listening in. When she hung up and started to apologize, he brushed it away. "Don't worry, rain check on the date, and you can bet I'll collect. Just remember this sometimes when I get called out. But no cab," he said hastily when she started dialing the phone. "I'll take you."

"It's a crime scene. I can't take you to a crime scene."

"You couldn't take me to an interview either, but you did. He called the waiter, explained the situation and left a sizable tip, then escorted Buffy back to his car.

Just as he was going to unlock the door, she reached out and grabbed the lapels of his jacket and yanked his face down to her height. Her lips found his in a kiss that was more than gratitude.

She kissed him slowly, savoring every bit of his lips, twisting and rubbing against them with her mouth in a way that had her dizzy. His tongue swept out, sliding between her lips to lap at the smoothness of her teeth before slipping between and tasting the depths of her mouth. She moaned, feeling it get caught in his mouth, echoing his own.

When they parted, he let his forehead rest against hers, his breathing a little unsteady. "We need to do that rain check, really soon. Okay?"

Buffy laughed and sneaked out from under his arms. "Okay, but now I got a dead body waiting and a partner that has a serious problem with me getting a night off right now."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six:

Buffy flipped out her badge at the uniform that was standing at the barricades in front of an old warehouse in the factory district down town. He quickly moved the bright yellow over sized saw horse aside and let Angel drive his Grand Prix through, putting it back behind them. They had already driven through a warren of police and news vehicles, parked haphazardly down the street, some over the curbs, some in tow away zones, and some were even double parked. She made a mental note to send a couple of uniforms down there to start writing tickets as soon as some of this mess was cleaned up.

She had Angel park behind a cruiser, and got out, motioning him to stay in his car. He got out too, walking around the car towards her and to where they could see the crime scene tape being strung. Bright portable lights were being set up by the crime scene unit that was already there. There was a crowd of people milling around just outside that tape, photographers snapping pictures, setting up video cameras while reporters shouted out questions to the people already on scene on the other side of the tape.

"Angel, thanks for the ride. I can catch a black and white home." She was itching to get over there and find out what was going on and to start yelling at the cops who were just standing there not doing anything to control the throng of people trying to push through the barricades.

"I'll wait for you. Unless something comes up at the hospital, I'll be in the car."

"It could be awhile. Really, if my partner is here, he can give me a ride home."

Angel felt a small pang of jealousy which shocked him. "And it's not a problem. I was hoping to con you into buying coffee later," he grinned down at her.

"Okay," she gave up. If he was so determined to wait, she'd let him. "Just remember, I warned you." She turned on one classy heel and started towards the crowd of reporters.

He watched her walk away, admiring the sway of her hips under the short skirt, the long firm line of her thighs as her stride changed, becoming less the siren and more the hard nosed detective.

Buffy pushed her way through reporters, barely hearing them as they shoved microphones and cameras in her face. She'd been hot news since Adam Walsh's arrest and had been the object of many articles and news bulletins. Her face was now well known which wasn't always the best thing for a homicide detective. "No comment," she growled for the fifteenth time since she started walking towards the yellow tape across the long parking lot. "Which part of those two words don't you people understand?" She stormed through the reporters, not stopping, 'accidentally' knocking a camera out of her face. She didn't even flinch when she heard it hit the ground with a crash of broken parts. Nor did she stop when she heard the cameraman cursing at her, a small smile flickering across her lips the only acknowledgement of the deed.

She spotted Riley, resplendent in jeans so faded that the stress points were white and thin and a tee shirt, his shoulder rig and badge prominent against the white material, arguing with a man she'd never seen before. She knew her partner, she knew all the signs of his temper and he was ready to blow.

Her heels clipped loudly on the blacktop surface, alerting him to her presence. Riley's head came up, his nostrils flared and she smiled, knowing he was smelling the perfume she'd put on earlier. She never wore perfume on the job, there were too many clues the scent could interfere with, too many ways that it could hinder a case besides being a distraction for the poor males of the species who were controlled by the pull of their hormones.

Without turning, he spoke to her. "Buffy, could you tell this asshole what happens to city councilmen who stand in the way of me doing my job."

Buffy stopped, snapped to attention as if this were a requirement before she answered. "Said city councilmember will spend the next two to three hours in the emergency room getting his head removed from his ass." She stepped between the two men, pushing Riley back slightly with a hand on his chest. "What's his problem?" She thumbed her hand towards the little man, talking over him as if he weren't there.

"Hemorrhoids. Come on, I'll show you what we got."

Riley turned away, ignoring the furious snarling and threats of the politician, and headed towards a small covered courtyard between the buildings. There were some picnic tables set up, a couple of small coffee cans for use as ashtrays, a couple of larger metal garbage cans, one tipped over on its side. Laying in the middle of it all was a body under a white sheet that was quickly turning red with blood. Blood was also splattered across the tables and the garbage cans, looking black despite the bright lights that were being set up around the crime scene.

"How's the date going?"

Buffy looked up, a pissed off expression crossing her face quickly before she shuttered it. "I didn't even get fed, and you damn well know it." She stepped quickly in front of him, throwing off his stride and managed to shove an elbow into his stomach, smiling with pleasure as she heard his loud woof. "Next time, I think you could manage without me long enough for me to have a decent meal. Don't you?" Her voice was saccharine sweet, oozing with sarcasm.

Riley rubbed his stomach, a chuckle escaping him. Despite the tiny, ultra feminine exterior she was showing tonight, she was all grit and determination. You just had to admire that in a woman, especially one that could put that kind of muscle into an elbow punch.

"So?" Buffy carefully pulled the sheet aside, crouching at the edge of a pool of blood. The girl had been a dirty blonde, a tiny chunk of hair had escaped being matted and covered in blood. Her face was piquant, big eyes staring unseeingly up at the ceiling covering the courtyard. Her expression was one of horror in a face that was untouched except for a huge gash just in front of her left ear that seemed too small to be accountable for all the blood. She lifted the sheet a little further and suddenly she was glad she hadn't eaten. Her breath blew out in a rush, her stomach rebelling for just a second before she got it under control. She'd seen bad, hell she'd seen almost as bad with the Walsh case, but this had to be one of the worst. Her body was foully marked, streaks of bloody slashes crisscrossing her naked skin. Some of the cuts looked merely superficial while others were deep, gaping wounds exposing muscle and body organs. Her breasts were marked with bruises, her thighs also and there were indications of rape, very violent rape if the blood pooling between her legs was any indication. She'd been used, tortured and killed, and if she knew her bodies, and she did, used again.

"Ahh, dammit. She felt most of that didn't she?" She let the sheet fall back over the body and stood up grimacing at the smell of death and the body waste that comes with it that wafted to her nose.

"Yeah, I'd say she felt about seventy five percent of it." Riley shook his head sadly. "Poor girl."

"Do we know who she is, yet?"

"No. No ID, no purse, no nothing found near the body. I've got a team of uniforms out searching dumpsters and alleys around the neighborhood. Hopefully we'll find something."

"Yeah, before the news hounds start flashing her picture all over the TV." She glared at one particularly aggressive cameraman who tried to sneak under the rope, catching the eye of a uniform who hurried over and stopped him. "No witnesses? No one heard screams? She had to have screamed. Who you got doing the knock on doors?" Buffy was staring sightlessly down at the sheet covered body, her mind busily putting things together. "She was killed out here. Had to have been with all the blood spatter, no drag marks present. Even if our guy was strong, there's too much blood..." she looked over towards the road, noting the street lights, the fast food restaurants that she knew were just a block away and heavily trafficked at this time of night. "Damn, all this traffic, people so close. Pretty gutsy."

"Or pretty stupid. We've got some more spatter over there. I think he grabbed her there, played with her for awhile until he got sick of the torture games and then let her run. She'd lost enough blood by then to knock her off balance so she wouldn't go far. Then he grabbed her, raped her and finished the job here." Riley walked around the outside of the scene, his eyes scanning the ground. "Is Doc Hot to Trot waiting for you at the restaurant?" He glanced up at her.

"No, actually. He's not."

"Ah, tired of him already?" Riley stooped down over a foot print, carefully staying back so that he wouldn't disturb the fragile dust. He studied her as he signaled for someone from the CSI unit to grab some pictures of the print.

"Why are you so nosey tonight? Do I horn in on your dates?" She moved back to the body, taking the pair of thin latex gloves he threw to her and sliding them on with a resounding snap. She set to work, ruthlessly ignoring her gag reflex and pulling the sheet to the side. The smell of intestines and vicious death was fierce, crowding into her nostrils with a force that told her she'd be smelling this for a while even after they left the body.

"No, no horning. But you could if you want to." He grinned at her. "I've always thought you'd be a great third." He laughed at the slightly bloody middle finger she raised at him. "Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. You, me and, hmm, Eve, maybe?"

Buffy picked up the girl's hand, taking the fingerprint kit from the CSI. Technically it was their deal, but she liked to get the prints and get the information herself without waiting for reports from the scientists. Inking and printing dead bodies is an art form that she'd gotten to practice a lot recently with Walsh's victims. "Get your mind out of the gutter. I know you live there most of the time, but try to show a professional attitude in front of the crime scene people, okay?"

Buffy finished the prints and tucked the card into her purse to take to the station. So much for her date. She'd have to send someone over to tell Angel. She got up and walked over to where Riley was still crouched down.

"Eve?" she asked suddenly, as if she'd just heard the name he'd given her. "Give me a break. You aren't still seeing her are you?"

"What do you see?" He pointed towards one of the benches of the table where a few stray white threads were idly flipping in the light wind.

"White threads, cotton maybe? Come on, you know white cotton is like one of the hardest things to trace." She moved back as he got up, towering over her even in her heels. They both stepped to the edge of the scene, watching the CSI unit come in and start gathering evidence, the coroner's people standing just at the edge with their gurney waiting to transport the body to the morgue.

"Yeah but not impossible." He watched as an investigator carefully plucked up the threads with a pair of tweezers after meticulously taking pictures of them. They were put into a small brown envelope and tagged, then slipped into the evidence bag. "Yeah, I still see Eve every once in a while. She's great for what ails you."

Buffy shook her head sadly as the CSI's motioned for the body to be removed so they could really start working. "Riley," she sighed. "You really need to start meeting a better class of lady."

"Like who?" He stared down at his diminutive partner. "Name one."

"What about Samantha what's her face over in traffic? She's pretty and she's got an education above the fifth grade level unlike your usuals."

Riley stared at her as if she'd lost her mind. "With that laugh, she sounds like she's got a chicken bone stuck in her throat. I can't go to bed with a woman who is going to make me puke if I make her laugh."

"Okay, okay." She held up her hand in a down boy motion. "Yeah, you're right, with you in bed, it's almost a sure bet that she'd start laughing," she added impishly and took a quick step sideways. She couldn't hold back her own amusement even though laughing on a crime scene was frowned upon by the brass. She made sure her back was to the cameras. "What about Marcie Ross from Vice? She's cute."

"Married. And I will get even for that crack."

Buffy looked at him in consternation. "When did that happen?"

"Two months ago. You were a little caught up in a case," he let sarcasm drip into his tone. "We ended up staking out Caritas that night instead of eating free food and getting trashed on the free beer."

And Caritas was where they had finally found the working girl that had lead up to finding and catching Adam Walsh.

"Okay, so we've been busy. But there's still better women out there than Eve."

He let Texas drip from his voice, making it smooth and low like honeyed whisky. "Yeah, but darlin', you're the only filly I want in my barn."

She almost snorted at him but managed to contain herself with a simple scoff. "Okay, seriously Riley, you really need to..." the rest of what she'd been about to say was lost as a uniform skidded up to them.

"We've got a car behind the warehouse. No one in it. Could be the vic's. My partner's back there with it now."

"Did you run the plates?" she asked as the man tried to stare down the front of her dress.

Riley nudged him, hard, while she stared daggers at the now blushing cop.

"Uh ... my partner's doing it now."

Riley nodded and then urged Buffy forward following behind the uniform quickly. He heard a scamper of feet and knew the hounds from the press were watching. "We need to get it strung quick. Those fucking vultures are circling enough." Riley hated the press, hated what they did to the victims, to their families, even to other cops. And it was all done in the appellation of the public's right to know.

He yelled to a couple of uniforms to control the crowd and get some yellow tape and follow them back.

The car was a piece of shit, rusted and old. There was gray bondo on the doors and the hood, a crack in the windshield that would surely net every patrol cops attention in five miles, and the radio antenna was a coat hangar duck taped to the car.

"Damn, if that's hers, it's amazing that she even made it here." Riley snapped fresh gloves into place and went to the driver's side door. He took the handle in two fingers, lifting delicately to save on losing any prints that might be collectible. For a moment, he thought it was locked but then it gave with a screech of rusted hinges.

Inside the car smelled like a fast food restaurant. Greasy hamburgers and onions were the scent of the day.

Riley sat down delicately in the front seat, his long frame almost bent in half as he tried to get around the steering wheel. "She's as small as you are, Buf," he grunted, reaching over to pop open the glove box. He pulled an envelope out and reached in for the papers. "We got registration. And look, it's still valid. Car's RO is Cassandra Newton." He glanced around the interior of the car as he held out the papers to Buffy. "And we have a purse." He scooped it up off the passenger side floor. The wallet was on top. "I'd say she's our victim. God damnit. She just turned eighteen two weeks ago. She's just a baby."

The picture on the ID made Buffy's heart hurt. She was small, pretty. Her hair was clean in the picture, it had streaks of purple in it. She was pale, big eyed. Her address was listed here in the city on the ID, an apartment complex on the less reputable side of town. She flipped through the wallet that Riley handed her. Twenty three dollars and some change, a condom, a couple of business cards for photography studios, and a piece of paper with the address to the warehouse on it. And that was it. No family pictures, no job receipts, not even a lousy bus token.

Riley was contemplating the back seat of the car which looked like Cassie used it as an impromptu dressing room. "Are all teens this bad? Check out the shit, makeup, clothes, magazines, and..." He closed his eyes for a second and gulped heavily. "Now this is disgusting." He waved her to look in the back seat and stepped out.

Buffy climbed in, checking out the backseat, prepared for the worse. It took a lot for her partner to turn green like he did. What would she see? Fingers? A severed head? She almost laughed when she did finally find it. Her poor partner, squeamish over something like this? She took a pen off the dash and carefully fished the object off the floor, holding it out a little as she stepped back. "This is getting to you?" The object, a used condom, hung limply from around the pen's barrel. "Wow, I can understand why. It looks like it's an extra large." She laid it back down where she found it. "But I don't think our killer left that. Looking at that crime scene, he's too bold to hide behind a raincoat."

"Yeah, well, we need to have this towed in." He motioned for one of the uniforms to do that and took another step back from the car.

"I guess we should get these prints run and then see if she lived with her parents. She's so young, she should have someone, a guardian, someone." She handed the wallet back to Riley and started to turn.

"Buf?"

She looked back, seeing him standing there, a flashlight in his hand pointed down at the driver's license. "Yeah?"

"Does she look familiar to you?"

She took another look at the smiling face that she knew would haunt her dreams for the next couple of nights. "Maybe..." she hesitated, knowing he saw something that was just beyond her grasp. "She sure don't look like Eve," she said, trying to joke the all too serious expression off his face.

"No, not her." His face was pale in the glow of the flashlight, and a little creepy, like a ten year old shining the light up under his chin to be scary. His words, when they came, were sharp and eerie sounding. "You, Buffy. She could be a younger you."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven:

Riley's words came to haunt her later that night as she stared down at the small face of the eighteen year old girl. They'd found out a lot about the poor beauty in the past couple of hours. Her car, full of half the girl's life, was also carrying a few missing pieces of the puzzle. Cassie was a note taker. She had notes about everything from scheduling time to do her laundry to a late night meeting with someone she called 88. The meeting was scheduled in the back parking lot of the warehouse where her car had been found.

"Now if we only had some idea who that could be," she mused out loud.

"Oh, come on. You know we never get the easy ones, those go to the slackers and the kiss asses." He rubbed his hand down her arm, feeling the chill on the skin bared by the tee shirt she'd managed to pull out of her locker to go with the jeans she had unearthed. The morgue was cold, purposefully kept that way to put a temporary hold on decomposition and smell. Even so, the scent of death lingered above the heavy duty air cleaners that ran 24/7.

The morgue always gave her the creeps, the black vinyl bags on top of gurneys lining the walls of the hallways made her think of horror flicks she had watched as a kid where the dead always sat up and walked. That thought sent another shudder through her slim frame.

"Yeah, but just once I'd like to have a bloody knife with a good set of latents on it and a scumbag of an ex husband to match them to." She pulled away from him and walked around the metal table their victim was laid out upon, her eyes taking in every detail of every wound. She studied the pattern, the slight curve upward at the end of every wound stroke, the different areas that were given the most heavy cuts. Now that she was laying here, the blood and gore cleaned from her body, she didn't quite look real. But the wounds were real. He had left the genitals and the breasts alone, preferring to use his hands from the looks of the bruises.

"Look at the size of those hand prints," Buffy said suddenly, startling Riley.

Riley stepped up to the side of the table, staring at the girl's naked breasts. He brought his own hand up, cupping his hand about an inch from the girl's skin.

"Okay, now I know I've seen it all."

The voice startled Riley- who started violently, dropped his hand behind his back and quickly stepped away from the metal table. He turned and saw the coroner, a man who was known for his sarcastic sense of humor and irreverent attitude. "Buffy was just..." He clamped his mouth shut, knowing anything he said would make the situation worse for him.

"Riley, what you and Buffy do on your off time is your own business, but no kinky stuff with my stiffs, okay?" Dr. Rupert Giles laughed as the blonde man turned bright red. And then he turned to the body. "Yeah, that guy had big mitts. Those bruises are something." He put his own hand, now safely covered in a latex glove, over the top of the bruises, his fingers not quite meeting the ends of them. "He had to really squeeze to get bruises that deep and formed in that short amount of time."

Jenna stepped closer, her mouth still twitching from trying not to laugh at Riley's face as he watched Dr. Giles manhandle their victim. "So what killed her doc?"

"The head wound wasn't serious enough to do anything but make her dizzy. None of these wounds are deep enough to kill right away, even the ones that exposed her intestines. So without doing any further work on her, off the cuff, I'd say it was blood loss. He sliced enough so she bled to death." He bent over to study the gaping wounds on the girl's abdomen. "I'd say your weapon was a very long, very sharp single edged knife with a slight curve on the end, see the upward slant?" He pointed it out for Buffy, standing back a bit for her to get a good look. "Now, mind you, this is just preliminary and I haven't had a chance to become better acquainted with Miss Newton yet. If I were to hazard a guess..."

"Please Doc. Your guess is better than mine at any point." Buffy did the obligatory ego stroke knowing her partner was still too red faced to be able to handle it.

"Okay. The head wound was the first shot, first blow to incapacitate. It didn't knock her out but made her dizzy and disoriented. After that, I'd say he stripped her and raped her. Pretty brutally too, considering the damage that I can see. First swipe of the knife happened after the rape, which gave the bruises time to form. Then they came fast and furious while she tried to get away. Finally, she lost too much blood and passed out. See this..." He pointed to a spot under her arm where a small slice could be seen. "Hit her brachial artery. He had to know what he was doing. Hit that, she bleeds out in just a few minutes time."

Buffy backed away from the table, shaking her head. They had a brutal killer who had intimate knowledge of the human body. "Thanks doc," she slipped off her gloves with a snap and wadded them up. "Can you get us copy of your reports, preliminary and final as soon as possible?"

"For you, anything. My lab is wide open for you." He grinned.

She smiled back and started to leave, listening to Riley's grumble and the clanking of tools as Dr. Giles began to work.

The door was just shutting behind them when she heard the first whirring noises of the bone saw begin to cut. She shuddered again. "Ick. I just couldn't do that job."

"But his lab is open wide to you anytime," Riley countered, his tone sarcastic. "He means his pants are open wide to you anytime. Dirty old man."

She flashed her badge at the guard at the gate and he buzzed them out, new procedures since a rash of organ stealing had been going on in the building. After clearing the gate, she turned and glared at him. "You seem awfully interested in any man who is interested in me all of a sudden. Or is even nice to me. You got a problem with me dating, Riley? Talking to other males in this world?" She poked a finger into his chest to emphasize her point.

He rubbed his chest and glared down at the diminutive beauty. "Nah, you date who you want to. I don't got a say in your life. I'm just your partner."

"Oh, don't you just your partner me." She turned and stomped towards the door, seeing the interested look in the guard and the older woman behind the glassed receptionist desk's faces. She threw them open and stepped out into the fresh air, made to smell even cleaner coming from the smell of death they had just been in.

She got to his car, a late model Monte Carlo, and slammed her hands down on the roof.

He threw her a murderous look, checking his paint job for scratches and the body for dents, then glared at her. "Okay, if you're mad at me, you take it out on me. You can pick up a baseball bat and whale the hell out of me, but don't ever touch my car like that again."

She glared right back. "I don't give you problems when you want to take out Eve, even though I know you can do better, don't start in on me and my dates."

"Fine." He popped the lock on his door and climbed in, hitting the door locks for her side as well.

"Fine," she sat in the seat, slammed the door shut and clicked the seat belt into place.

* * *

Riley drove at a break neck speed the few blocks back to the precinct, pulling into his parking spot and hitting his brakes at the last possible minute, knowing how much she hated when he drove like that.

They sat there for a second, staring at the brick wall in front of them without speaking.

"I'm so..."

"List..."

They both spoke at the same time. Riley smiled, his mustache crinkling around his firm lips. "Me first?" he offered.

"Yeah, okay."

"I had no right to get antsy about your date with the doc. I just don't want to see you get all hot about some guy and have him mess with you." He reached out and tucked a wisp of her hair behind her ear.

"Apology accepted." Buffy said and then sat back and smiled.

"Well, don't you have something to say to me?" He let his big hand slide down and rest on her shoulder.

"Such as?" She gave him her most innocent expression of confusion.

"Buffy," he growled.

"Okay, geesh. You can be such a child some days." He growled again, his hand tightening just slightly on her shoulder. "Okay, damn. I'm sorry I beat up on your precious piece of junk car."

"Piece of junk!" The outrage on his rugged face had her breaking into peals of laughter, unable to contain it anymore. She put her hand on top of his and squeezed as he started spouting curses at her.

"Okay!" she chuckled. "It's not a piece of junk. It's the sexiest heman car any man could possibly be lucky enough to have. And you are a God when you drive it."

"Better," but he sent her a glare anyway, which was softened by a smile he couldn't contain anymore either.

* * *

"So what have you got against Angel anyway?" she asked as he started to get out of the car.

"Do we have to go there?"

"Huh? What do you mean? You have to have a reason for not wanting me to go out with him." She tipped her head to the side, her green eyes quizzical under their thick lashes.

"No," he shook his head at her and grabbed the latch, "this is a heart attack question." He started out the door of his car again.

"A what?" Buffy grabbed his arm and yanked him back.

"A heart attack question." He sighed heavily and sank back down in the seat reluctantly. "It's a question where I'm better off having a heart attack than answering because either way, I'm in for it."

Buffy laughed at that, especially since he actually looked as if he would prefer be struck down dead than get into this conversation. "All right. You're off the hook. But we still need to get over to Cassie Newton's apartment and check it out." She folded her hands in her lap and waited for him to start the car back up.

He drove at a much more sedate pace through almost nonexistent traffic and to the quad of apartment buildings five stories tall that overlooked a huge shopping center. It was one of those places that claimed "One stop shopping". Most of the apartments were dark considering it was a week night and close to midnight.

Riley pulled up in front of the right set of apartments and turned off his car. "God, I hate this part of the job."

"Yeah." She stared out the front window at the lit doorway. "We might as well get at it." Buffy climbed out of the car, slamming the door tight and hearing the werp sound as he locked it and turned on his car alarm. She stood at the door and looked at the buttons sitting next to it. A small slip of paper with the hand written name H. Webster was taped next to the button for 3B. She looked at Riley and then pressed the button, holding it down for a second longer than she probably should have but it was late and this person could be asleep.

Three seconds later, a very loud male voice burst from the speaker at them. "God dammit! What?"

Buffy looked up at Riley who just shrugged, being the big man that he was and waved his hand towards the button. "Ladies first."

"Thanks so damn much." She pushed the button and spoke into the receiver. "Mr. Webster, this is Detective Buffy Summers and my partner Detective Riley Finn. Does a Cassandra Newton live here?" She let go of the button and muttered under her breath, "Detective chicken shit is more like it."

"What's she done now?" the voice asked rudely.

"She does live here then, sir?"

"Yeah. What's she done?" he asked again.

"May we come up sir?" Her voice was polite but firm. They needed to get into that apartment.

"Listen, I got work in the morning and..."

"We promise to keep this as brief as we can sir, but we need to come up and talk to you."

* * *

Finally, after what seemed minutes but had to have been only seconds, the buzzer on the door sounded and the lock clicked open. Riley grabbed the door and held it for Buffy and then they trudged up the roughly carpeted stairs. The hallway on the third floor smelled like cabbage and onions and as they passed by apartment A, they could hear the thin noises of someone's TV playing inside.

"I always wondered what these places looked like," Riley said staring at the shoddy carpet and dingily painted walls as he raised his hand to knock on apartment B. His fist landed once and the door was pulled open quickly, startling both of them so that Buffy took a step back, her hand automatically going to her shoulder rig and the grip of her 9 mm.

The man who opened the door was looking a tad rough and unkempt. He stood there in a pair of pajama bottoms and a tee shirt, both of which were stained with brown splotches as if he'd dropped a cup of coffee on them and never bothered to clean it up. He stared at the pair of them, taking a quick look and then coming back for a second longer perusal of Buffy's lovely face and body. The look in his eyes made her wish she had pulled her 9 on him.

"Mr. Webster? Sir, we need to come in and speak to you."

Buffy held open her badge to identify herself without being asked seeing Riley do the same thing. The man turned and led the way through an apartment that held all the cheer and appeal of a boy's dorm in college. And smelled almost as bad. Socks lay on the floor, dirty dishes sitting next to an ancient recliner in the corner, a plethora of sports magazines were sprawled haphazardly over a lopsided coffee table. She took a cautious seat on a creaky, sagging couch cushion when it was offered and Riley perched gingerly beside her.

"What's this all about?" Holden Webster asked, slumping in the recliner and grabbing a pack of cigarettes off a filthy end table.

"What's your relationship with Cassandra Newton, sir?" Riley asked.

"She's my girlfriend. Why? What kind of trouble is she in now?" He heaved a huge sigh, lit the cigarette that was sticking out of his mouth and dragged in a lungful of smoke.

Buffy looked at Riley and then sighed herself. He was useless when it came to this stuff. "Sir, I'm sorry to have to tell you this but Cassandra was killed tonight." She sat quietly and waited for his reaction.

"Aw, shit." He inhaled more smoke and let it stream out of his mouth as he sat forward and stared into his hands. "Killed? Like a car accident?" He looked up at Buffy for the answer.

"No, sir." she said gently. "She was murdered." It was always hard to know just how much to tell a loved one when breaking the news.

Buffy left it at that.

"Shit," he said again, shaking his head. "I told her she shouldn't go tonight." He looked up at Buffy. "That guy killed her didn't he? That guy that she went to meet tonight?"

"Did you know this 'guy'?" she asked quietly, not answering his question.

"No, she came home this afternoon from work all excited. Said this guy came in and told her she was just what he needed for his magazine layout, that he was going to make her rich off her face alone." He laughed ruefully. "Like that could happen. I mean, not that she wasn't pretty but this is real life. I tried to tell her, but she wouldn't listen to me. Stupid kid."

"Where did she work, sir?"

"Next door, at the Magic store. She cashiered."

"And this guy met her through her cashiering?"

"Yeah. She said he went through her lane and thought she was really pretty. He told her he wanted to take her picture and that he would be somewhere tonight to meet her." He blew a long plume of smoke into the air. "When I laughed, she got mad and said she was leaving."

"She didn't mention any names or where they were meeting? Anything like that?" Buffy took out her notebook and copied down a few facts.

"Nope. She just said he was going to make her famous and told me to go to hell. I told her to keep quiet when she came home tonight and if she fucked him, not to bother coming home." He ran his hand through his hair and then over his face.

"Do you mind if we look around a bit, check through her things?"

"She took most of her things with her when she left. I didn't think she was planning on coming back. I threw what else I found in that garbage bag over there." He sat back in his chair and stubbed out the cigarette, lighting another one. "You guys can have it. Listen, she don't have any family, her parents were killed when she was a baby. I don't want to sound like no bad guy or nothing but..." he tried to smile a little as he gestured around the room. "As you can see, I don't live in any palace. What happens to her if I don't claim her body?"

Riley felt gorge rise in his throat. He felt an almost irrepressible urge to slam the guy through the wall. He heard Buffy talking and got up to walk around the small apartment, poking his nose into the other rooms and looking around a little to take time to get his temper under control.

"The county will cover the cost of burial, sir, if no one claims the body."

"Oh, that's okay then." He looked down at her hands that were held stiffly on her lap. "You know, you look like an older version of her in some ways. But not too many. But much better. Prettier. You married?"

Riley couldn't believe what he heard. He stormed back into the room with the intent of picking the asshole up by the tattered tee shirt and seeing how many hits it would take to break the guy's nose. Buffy got up and moved so she stood right in his path, stopping him. "We'll take her stuff now, sir." She pulled one of her business cards out of her wallet and handed it to him, trying not to shiver as he purposefully touched her hand with his when he took it. "If you happen to remember anything else, you can reach myself or Detective Finn here at that number."

"I'll do that, Buffy is it?"

She gave Riley a quick shove that had him turning and picking up the bag and then headed towards the door. "Thanks for your time, sir." She couldn't help the sarcasm and disrespect that laced into the last sir.

* * *

They went out the door and Buffy could almost feel the jerk's eyes on her ass as she hurried out of there. For the second time tonight she had a case of the creeps, first at the morgue and now here, but this time was worse. "How can anyone act like that when told their girlfriend was dead?" she muttered hotly. "I mean, you'd even give your Eve chick a decent burial and maybe a tear or two because her impressive bust line was gone. What a fucking asshole."

"Well, hell yeah," Riley said as he shoved the trash bag into his trunk and got into the car. "That rack's worth a tear or two when it won't be around anymore. I mean, Buf, come on. You have to admit, it's pretty damn hot."

"Pig."

"Yep, and got the badge to prove it," he said, wiggling his eyebrows at her.

She laughed as he started the car and headed back downtown.

He dropped her off at her apartment since there wasn't much else they could get done tonight, waiting until she used her key to get in and he saw the elevator close behind her and then he took off for home.

* * *

Buffy's head had barely touched her pillow when she was startled awake by a loud knocking on her door. She got up and trudged through her apartment, wearing the tank top, boxers and socks she'd managed to pull on before falling into bed, rubbing her eyes and yawning hugely. Without even checking the peep hole she opened the door. "Dammit Riley. I just got into bed."

"Well, I could go back with you if you like."

Buffy's eyes popped wide open at the sound of Angel's voice. She had a smart assed answer on the tip of her tongue when she saw he was holding out the bear that she had forgotten in his car the night before. And then she had to grin. The doll was so silly looking with his oversized star and felt brimmed hat. She took him from Angel and turned, motioning for the doctor to come into the apartment. The bear went on the back of her couch along with a couple of others she had there.

"All he needs is a set of bear handcuffs," Angel said.

"Yeah, and a couple of bear prostitutes to bust. So what are you doing here? And how the hell do you keep getting up here without getting buzzed in?" she walked over and pushed him down onto the couch, giving into impulse and following him down to snuggle into his neck. She was tired and he smelled so good, she buried her nose inhaling deeply.

"Well, I realized we'd never set up a rain check date. I could have set it up with the officer you sent over to tell me you were going downtown but I figured that just didn't have the same flare as doing it in person." His arms came up around her, holding her sleep warmed body next to his. "And if I tell you how I get in, I might not get to do this anymore." She was tickling the side of his face with her mussed hair. Angel scooted down on the couch a little, getting more comfortable as she murmured something almost incomprehensible into his neck. He grinned at the little noises she was making as she grouched at his movements. "I think I need to wake you up more often. This is so different from what I'm used to with you."

"After the night we just had," she moaned a little and shifted her rounded bottom on his lap a little, feeling him jerk under her. She had to try hard to keep the smile out her voice as she finished, "I was lucky to get any sleep at all."

"They said on the news that it was bad. They had a fantastic shot of you walking up to the crime scene all dressed up in that black dress and heels, with that get out of my way and don't fuck with me attitude."

Buffy picked up her head and stared at him for a second before putting it back down and grouching, "You're really wrecking my mood here, Doc."

He laughed and squeezed her close for a second, enjoying the soft curves and taut toned body against his. "So do you want to try dinner again?"

She let her fingers walk up the front of his shirt playing with the buttons as she went. She could hear his heart beating under her ear and tried to remember the last time just that sound had made her quite so content. Was she falling for the doctor? "We could do it here," she offered.

"You cook?"

Buffy picked up her head and gave him another dirty look at the incredulous sound in his voice. "I'll have you know that my mother taught me how to cook. It was the only thing she ever really got me to do that was feminine since I had three older cousins who thought they were more like brothers. I mostly just tagged along with them and my dad, but she forced me to learn to cook, and I happen to enjoy doing it." A huge yawn ruined the affronted look she was trying to affect and she belatedly covered her mouth. "Sorry," she grinned at him. "What time is it anyway?"

He looked around the room cautiously for a second until she asked him what he was doing. "Looking for your gun, you don't happen to have it on you, do you?"

"Uh, no. Why?"

"Because I don't want you to shoot me when you find out what time it is. I got called in to pull a double today. It's only 4:30."

She looked at him for a second, trying to figure out if he was kidding her or not. "So what time do you have to be in?"

"I got about five more minutes and then I have to leave," he said, squeezing her tight again for a second before standing with her still in his arms. He aimed in the direction she had disappeared in before and carried her back to her bedroom, laying her gently in the middle of the tangled covers.

"You know," she said as she reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him down on top of her, "I've had this daydream where you do that, but usually I'm wearing something a little less comfortable than what I have on now and you aren't planning on leaving anytime soon."

"You daydream about me, huh?" He let his weight rest on his elbows and stared down at the inviting elfin face beneath him. "That's just got to mean something, doesn't it? Maybe I should ask one of the shrinks at the hospital."

"You know, Doc, sometimes you pick the wrong things to think about in a statement. So why don't you just shut up and shut me up while you're at it." She tugged on his neck and pulled him close, feeling his lips settle over hers to tease for an instant.

He pulled his head back, gazing down into her sleepy green eyes before kissing her again. This time he didn't stop with a quick touch but took his time, learning the shape of her lips, the way they tasted in the corners, felt as she twisted her mouth under his. When she opened beneath him, his tongue swept in, drinking of the dark pleasure of her mouth, tangling and touching her tongue until they were both breathless. His thigh had somehow insinuated its way between hers, his hands holding onto her hips as they moved under him.

His beeper went off, startling both of them. He pulled it out of his pocket and grumbled at the number, shoving it back in before dropping a kiss on her nose. "That's what I get for you starting things I can't finish right now." He stood and stared at the picture she made stretching against the jade green sheets on her bed. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes half closed with more than sleep now. He could see desire for him in the green depths. Her skin seemed to glow against the dark color, tawny and tempting him, her tank top had somehow gotten pushed up, the skin of her stomach teasing him. Her thighs were smooth and sleekly muscled and his hands clenched, remembering how her butt had felt cupped in his palms. "You're a dangerous lady and I don't just mean because you carry a gun." He almost moaned when she stretched once more, her arms above her head, the tank top threatening to push even higher as she moved. "You need to come and see me today for coffee. Can you?"

"Yeah, I'll kick Ri loose for a while and be there this afternoon." She stretched again as she saw the look in his eyes, feeling a surge of pleasure that came from knowing that a fantastic looking, intelligent, professional man found her utterly desirable and the power that gave her to tease and tempt. "Shouldn't you be going, Doc?" She turned on her side letting him see what his hands had done to her boxers, pushing them up until the curve of her buttocks were exposed to his eyes.

He let out a huge sigh and unclenched the fists that he'd unknowingly made trying to resist climbing back into bed with her. His beeper peeled again and he grabbed it quickly, swearing lightly under his breath. He turned, feeling her eyes on him as he stood at the doorway of her bedroom, taking a last look before he flipped the switch she had turned on when she went to answer the door.

She listened as he went through her apartment, turning off lights on his way out. She stretched again as he closed the front door, hearing him turn the knob to check if it was locked. JShe closed her eyes, feeling his hands on her skin and his mouth on hers and fell asleep no longer worrying about seeing brutalized flesh and spattered blood.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight:

The wind was howling through the trees as she ran recklessly through the thick underbrush, branches catching and ripping her clothing and slapping across her face. She was afraid to look back, afraid she'd fall or find him right behind her, reaching for her. Her hand went frantically to the shoulder rig she wore, reaching for the 9mm that she kept in the holster.

Empty!

Her heart raced, breath whistling in and out of her lungs as she pushed herself to go faster. A clearing loomed ahead, the moon shining dimly through the clouds. She'd have to cross it to get through to the other side of the park. Terror gripped her as she reached the edge. Her head pivoted frantically as her eyes searched the gloom of the trees for the figure that was stalking her. A snap of a branch made her whirl one way, the brush of a leaf against a body turned her the other. The low gasping sounds of her breathing seemed incredibly loud to her ears. Every shadow seemed to claim an indistinct figure, every trembling branch caused by a dark form pushing past.

Buffy forced herself to try to be calm, shoving the damp wispy bangs off of her forehead with a trembling hand that left a streak of dirt to mix with the blood from where a branch had cut her face. She searched the clearing and the surrounding woods as carefully as her fear would allow, flinching at every sound. The waiting was killing her, waiting to see if her pursuer was still following, if maybe she had lost him. She couldn't stand it anymore.

She found a nice size branch that had blown down in the last storm and picked it up like a club. Then she took her first steps out into the clearing. She looked like a doe, her head up, nose to the wind to check for scent of predator. Her movements were slow, almost jerky, her body shaking in fear.

"Ahh, there you are." His voice sent chills of terror skittering down her spine almost making her freeze.

Buffy turned quickly, spying him at the edge of the clearing, his body a dark blurry presence in the sheltering shadows.

His white teeth flashed though, showing brightly in a grin of perverse pleasure at her fear. "Are you scared?" He laughed, his head tipped back. "You should be. I've waited for months to find you like this, to be alone with you like this. You owe me and now," she saw his body move as he shrugged his shoulders, "I get to kill you."

Buffy started backing away, the branch held out in front of her like the blade of a sword. It was feeble protection at best but it was also all she had.

The man started forward, slowly following her into the midst of the clearing, enjoying his game of cat and mouse. He would move off to his side, forcing her to turn to keep him in her sights. Her steps would change direction and soon she was heading back towards the dense part of the park and away from the relative safety of the lights. She tried to keep him in sight and also to glance around, searching for escape.

He reached out suddenly, the knife a glimmering blur as he slashed at her. He missed, but his eyes gleamed in the light and she knew he meant to miss her that time.

Suddenly screaming as loudly as she could, she brought the branch down, trying to hit him with it. Instead, he ducked back and the momentum carried her around, knocking her off balance. She stumbled, desperately trying to stay up, her ankle twisted, sending shards of agony through her and she collapsed down on the ground.

He was on her before she could move, knocking the branch away from her and pushing her down to her back. His bigger body knocked the air from her lungs and he took the opportunity while she struggled to catch her breath, to grab her wrists. Using a zip tie he pulled from the back pocket of his pants, he fastened them together, and held them above her head with one hand. His other held the knife, a huge thing that glittered evilly in the dim light of the clearing. She fought against him, fought his seemingly massive weight as he ground his hard body into her softer one. His hips pressed against hers, his thighs forcing her legs apart until she had no choice but to feel him, hard and throbbing through the layers of their clothing.

He let the knife slide down her cheek, watching as her eyes followed its path, the tip barely pressing against the softness of her skin. It slid down over her jaw line, leaving a thin, red line against her throat before stopping at the top button of the blouse she was wearing. She struggled furtively under him only stopping when the tip of the knife pressed into the upper swell of her breast, pushing through the skin.

The pain was horrible, a red hot slash that had a scream backing up in her throat. She instantly stopped moving, her breath a furious panting. He watched the small wound fill with blood and start to drip, leaving a trail of red that in the dim light of the clearing shone an eerie black.

"Why?" she heard herself cry out and berated herself for the weakness. Men like these didn't need a why. Men, no, animals like this one did it for the pleasure, for the thrill, to dominate and to subjugate. There was no why here, only pain and most probably death. She had to find a way out.

Fresh air circled around her skin as the knife made its slow path, cutting off the buttons to her blouse until her upper torso was bare but for the lacy, thin covering of her bra. She felt his tongue against her breast, licking at the trail of blood. His mouth opened over the wound, his tongue laved at it sending bright flickers of pain and making her moan.

"Just as I thought," he hissed, staring down at her, the light behind him leaving his face still shadowed and unrecognizable. "You're just like the rest of them. A little force, a few kisses and you all want the same thing, every one of you. You want this," he said, thrusting his hips against her groin, letting her feel him heavy and thick against her. "You're a slut. I thought you'd be different, I'd hoped ... But it doesn't matter now, it's too late. You'll die like the rest of them, screaming and begging for mercy."

She cringed back as his face came towards her, felt the heavy, hard strength of his fingers twisting her jaw cruelly and holding her still as his mouth ground down on hers. He kissed her brutally and with such strength that her lips mashed against her teeth, cutting the fullness of them so that blood filled her mouth. Her body bucked and fought under this new onslaught. She had to fight, she just couldn't allow him to take her, to amuse himself with her body while she lay like a dead piece of meat. She knew that he'd kill her. She knew it. This, the sex, for him was nothing more than foreplay leading to the final thrill. Her death.

Buffy tore her mouth out from under his, feeling blood from her torn lip dripping down her jaw. She fought, writhing under him, trying to dislodge him from her body. Her hands throbbed, the zip tie digging into the flesh of her wrists, making them bleed. She heard a strange keening sound and knew it was coming from her but she had no more control over her actions and only one primal thought left, to get away, to live.

He cut through the waistband of her jeans pushing them off her struggling legs with barely a sign of effort. Bare now, her legs gleamed in the shadowy light. She used them, kicking at his legs, at his thighs. She screamed, long and loud and he just laughed.

With a flick of the knife, her bra was sliced open. He pulled the cups to the side, admiring the rounded perfection they exposed. The knife tip traced across the firm buds of her nipples, pricking with tiny precise flicks of his wrist.

He dropped the knife next to him but out of her reach, moving to grasp the delicate lace of the tiny red silk panties she wore and ripping them from her easily. Then his hand moved and she felt it fumbling at her stomach as he undid his own clothing. A mere moment of fumbling and suddenly she felt the hard head of his cock nudging at the dry flesh between her legs.

The light of the moon shone out from behind the clouds that had dimly veiled it, giving her, finally, a chance to see her attacker. Her heart stuttered, disbelief and horror warring with pain on her face. Her breath stilled in her chest as it suddenly became full of more than pain, betrayal a worse sort of emotional angst that tore at her heart. Her head shook slowly as she tried to deny what her eyes were seeing.

"You're doing this? You're killing..." She shut her eyes, trying to ignore the harsh, poking thrusts between her thighs, thrusts that burned and hurt as he started to force himself into her unprepared body. "Why?"

He leaned over her, holding her hips still with one hand, the other still above her head. "Because of you," he whispered eerily into her ear and thrust hard into her.

* * *

Buffy sat up, screaming and pushing the smothering blankets off her body. Her heart raced as she stared around the room, looking for him. The pain faded as the dream did until it's hold upon her was psychological instead of physical and she grabbed a pillow, holding it to her stomach as tears streamed down her face. "Just a dream, Buffy," she whimpered, rocking herself. "Come on, it was just a dream, get yourself together."

A sob caught her unprepared. She forced herself out of bed, staring in horror at the clock. She'd slept no more than two hours, but knew she wouldn't be going back to bed. She couldn't climb back into that bed right now, not with the horror of that dream still fresh in her mind.

Why would her subconscious chose him to portray the brutal rapist and killer in her dreams? She knew a psychologist would have a field day on her right now. Murder cop with night terrors that deal with psychopaths that are killing her and they have the face of the man she thought she was falling for. Yeah.

She needed to do something, she needed action to put this out of her mind. She quickly stripped out of the boxers she'd slept in, and throwing on a pair of bike shorts to go with the tank top she still wore, she went into her office. She bypassed the weight equipment, needing something fast and physical, something that would sweat the poisons of the dream out of her system. Her heavy bag hung in the corner, her light gloves hanging next to it from a hook. She ignored the gloves, wanting to feel the punishment on her hands today. Stretching her legs, she could feel the muscles protesting slightly then starting to warm. She stretched one arm above her head, grabbing it with her other hand just at the elbow and pulling. She repeated with the other, shaking and rolling her head. She stepped barefoot to the bag, lifting her hands and fisting them as she eyed her opponent.

The first tentative punch sent a slight zing up her arm, the next, not quite so tentative, tingled the muscles. She punched and ducked, weaving a little around the bag, using her knee to kick and then the side of her leg. As she warmed up, her movements became more sure, her fists punching the leather harder. A duck then a sweep with her leg under the bag, made her smile at the rightness of the movement.

Her mind took over, numbing to all else around her. The bag took on features of different people. Adam Walsh received a snap kick to his face and then a punch with all the force she could put into it. The captain got a broken nose for his troubles. Sweat streamed down her body, plastering the lightweight tank top to her curves. Her hair clung to her head in wet ringlets.

And when her arm was grabbed, startling her, she turned, leading with a right hook.

Riley jumped, staring at the fist that stopped just an inch from his nose. "Whoa, I give up. Take it easy slugger."

Buffy dropped her arms, her chest heaving as she caught her breath. "What are you doing here?" She went to the tiny fridge she had next to her desk and grabbed a bottle of water. Breaking the seal, she opened it and drank half of its contents in one long pull. She grabbed a towel from off a shelf and wiped off her face, looking at him while she waited for his answer.

"Killer? Bodies? Police officers?" He sighed. "Any of this sound familiar to you?"

"You're a riot, really. Why don't you go make some coffee and I'll grab a quick shower."

He smiled and tugged at the towel she'd thrown across her shoulders. "I could scrub your back?" he offered. "I know, it's a rough job, but some..."

"Shut up and go make coffee." She took the end of her towel away from him and snapped him with it when he turned around.

Smiling, she went to her room and into the bathroom beyond, stripping out of her sweat soaked workout clothes to get in the shower.

The hot water pounded on her body, finishing the job of releasing all the stress the dream had given her. She stood under it, just enjoying the steady pulsing flow after washing. She finally felt she could think now.

The shower door opened, startling her. A cup of steaming caffeine was shoved at her. She took it, staring once more at Riley's face as his eyes roamed up and down her naked body.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" she almost shrieked at him. Turning off the water and grabbing a towel to wrap around her slim frame. She pushed past him, shoving the mug of coffee in his stomach and stood across the room, leaving water to pool on the tile floor. "I can't believe you. What the hell is going on in your head?"

Riley grinned, unrepentantly. "Buffy, you know I've always wanted to take you to bed. Come on, don't you wonder what it would be like between us? Admit it." He sat the mug down on the long counter and took the two steps that brought him in touching range of the mostly naked beauty. "I really care for you, Buffy. If you'd let yourself, you know you care about me the same way."

Shock kept her still and allowed him to push his fingers into the deep cleavage caused by the towel she'd wrapped around herself and yank her towards him. Surprise is what kept her from pushing him away as he pulled her wet body against his, holding her securely in his long arms. Amazement kept her from knocking him to the floor with a well placed knee when his lips came down on hers.

His lips were firm and moist, talented upon her own as he rubbed and cajoled her into a response. His tongue swept into her mouth, tasting faintly of coffee and mint, tangling with her own as she felt the first inescapable stirrings of passion. Her body responded, her arms slowly sliding up his long body, her hands sliding into his hair. She heard him groan and pull her closer, his body the only thing holding the towel to cover her nakedness.

"God," he groaned. His mouth captured hers one more time, his hands fiercely running over the smooth skin of her naked back. He cupped her buttocks, lifting her until she sat on the cold Formica counter, pushing her slender thighs apart to fit himself between. "I've wanted to do this a long time."

Whether it was his words or the cold of the Formica under her naked bottom, Buffy suddenly realized what she was doing. She couldn't have sex with him; he was her partner, a member of the same police force she worked for, and her best friend. She pushed him back, struggling with him when he tried to kiss her again.

"What... ?"

She was saved from an explanation as her phone rang and his pager went off at the same time. She managed to push him back, sliding off the counter while wrapping the towel securely around her and grabbing her robe off of the back of the door as she went to answer the phone.

He followed behind her, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket. He dialed some numbers and said hello almost the exact same time as she did.

Buffy listened, grabbing a pen and wrote an address down on the back of an envelope and then ran to get dressed.

He came in as she was adjusting her shoulder rig, checking the load on her 9mm before slapping it into the holster and securely snapping it. She turned, anger shooting from her eyes, before she grabbed her brush and ran it through her wet hair quickly. "We got another body," she said, trying to control the violence she was feeling toward him now.

"Yeah, I know. Look, Buffy," he ran a hand through his own hair, shoving the tangle blonde mass off of his forehead. "We need to talk about what almost happened in there."

"Yeah, but we got a case to work. The job is more important. And the only thing that matters." She grabbed a light jacket to throw over her rig and started to walk by him.

"What do you mean, the job's more important? Do you not know how I feel about you?" He tried to take her in his arms again and she held him off with just a look, rage, confusion and a surprising need blazing from her green eyes.

"Dammit, Riley. We can't talk about this now. We have another dead girl, and a killer who isn't taking much time between kills. We don't have time to talk about how big of a mistake we almost just made. So, unless you want me going on my own, shut up and let's move." She grabbed his arm and shoved him out of her room.

* * *

They took his car, him speeding all the way there, his red and blue bubble light flashing off the dash as they flew by other traffic. Buffy clutched onto the door handle and held her breath every time he'd take a corner, seeming to come up on two wheels.

She berated herself for what happened, blamed him, and worried what this would do to their relationship.

She only spoke up once on the nine minute long drive across town. Another car, one with Canadian license plates pulled in front of them, he'd swerved, narrowly missing clipping the car next to them. Horns blared and she'd had to brace herself, sure that they were about to crash. The words that came out of her mouth weren't for him though, only a prayer to whoever was listening that they should get there okay.

She could see the lights flashing ahead of her and the traffic became a mess as people slowed to a crawl to rubberneck at all the cops. Riley cursed and smacked his hand down on his steering wheel, finally pulling over to the side of the street and stopping the car. "It'll be faster if we walk."

Riley got out and locked the car, hurrying forward to almost run the next two blocks.

The body was in the park, and they skidded their way down a steep hill instead of walking around the next two blocks to get to the entrance. They could see the white sheet covering the body from the top of the hill and had to push through a group of photographers to reach it.

Buffy snapped at the first uniform she saw. "Get those fucking news people behind a barricade and do it now." She then hurried forward to catch up with her partner, hearing the muttered "bitch" come from the uniform's mouth. Yeah, she was a bitch. She knew it. And he would find out how much of one she was next chance she got.

Riley was kneeling over the body, which was lodged against a half buried rock. Her hand and most of her leg were floating in the river she was lying next to. She croched down next to him, peering under the sheet that he lifted higher for her. A gasp came from her throat and it was all she could do not reach up and rub her eyes in disbelief. The body, naked again, was of a slim, tiny brunette about twenty years of age. She'd been stabbed, but no where near as bad as their first victim. Little stab wounds could be seen, around her breasts, on her stomach and thighs, across the bare flesh of her sex. Her throat was slashed; a deep cut that had almost decapitated her.

The smell of blood was still heavy in the air, the body cold but not in full rigor.

"She hasn't been dead long. What is it, about eight? Damn, he couldn't have left her here not two to three hours ago." Buffy scooted around, almost stepping into the water to get a better look. "Not enough blood under the body, this is a secondary crime scene. Maybe even a body dump."

Riley turned and looked at the long hill they had just come down and the distance between where they now stood and the top. "No way he tossed a body that far. With the beginning of rush hour traffic on the road, no, he had to have brought her in from the park entrance."

"We should check it out anyway." She called another uniform down and got him to round up a group of about ten officers. She had two check out the hill for signs of blood or a body falling, but with the traffic coming down the hill, any signs of disturbance could be someone's heels. Unless blood was found, there was no way to be certain. They put out a call for tracker dogs and closed down the park. The chief, after a heated discussion with Riley, called the Mayor to get it approved. Blockades went up at all entrances as a detail started making a slow but thorough sweep, the dogs were brought in and given the scent from a scent pad pulled from the body.

Buffy stayed with the body, watching the crime scene crew as they finished taking there samples and fingerprints. Finally, the coroner's van was allowed in to take the body. She stared at the face of the girl before they covered her up, a face that held an expression of horror and pain, an expression she recognized as the one that had been on her own face during her dream this morning.

Tape was set up, marking the location of the body, and the gurney carrying her was taken away. Buffy stopped to speak to the CSU techs. "I need your reports as soon as possible."

Daniel Osbourne, a member of the crime scene unit and someone she'd worked with many times before, nodded. "You got it Buf, as quick as we get anything."

"I need the print card you took, I want to check the prints out myself." She stared into Oz's eyes, deep and filled with sympathy and understanding.

"You know I'd do anything I could to help you out. But, that's our territory, not yours." He looked at her for a moment and then shook his head. "Okay, damn it. But I didn't give you this, got me?" He took the card that was tucked safely into an envelope and handed it to her.

"You're the best, Oz," she said, smiling at him and patting him on the cheek. "I won't forget this."

"You'd better not, because you now owe me." Oz packed up the rest of his stuff. Until the primary crime scene could be discovered, he was done.

Buffy, card in hand, went to find her partner.

Riley wasn't difficult to find, a sudden baying and barking of the dogs leading her right to where he was. They had found the primary kill spot. S

he walked up, careful of her steps and stood next to him as they took in the horror. Clothing, female and lacy, lay in cut up slices, thrown in different directions from where a large pool of blood was slowly soaking into the ground. Red pump heels were within ten feet of each other, one with it's heel broken off. Both showed signs of being dragged which Buffy could see from where they were standing. Something sparkled in the grass, caught in a ray of sunshine. An earring, the post bloody, lay in the grass. She closed her eyes, going back into her mental file to the body. Was she wearing the other one? Could the killer have taken it as a souvenir? She wasn't sure.

"Those clothes don't look like what someone would wear for a walk in the park," Riley said as he gestured towards the shoes with their mile high heels. "I can't even see trying to out run anyone in those."

Buffy remembered her own recent hatred towards a pair of heels and sighed.

He heard her and put his hands on her shoulders, rubbing the tense muscles with delicate strength. He found a twist of knots and dug in with his thumbs feeling her relax slightly and moan, her head lolling forward. Then she tightened back up and pulled away from him, skirting the edge of the crime scene. "Buf," he said quietly, waiting until she looked away from the grizzly scene and looked at him instead. "We need to talk about what happened."

She nodded her head. "But not here, and definitely, not now."

He could hear the crime scene techs coming toward them and stepped aside to let them do their work. His hand snaked out and grabbed the hem of her jacket as she tried to walk away from him once more. "When, then?"

Dammit, she thought. It was a mistake, why couldn't he see that? "Later," she sighed, feeling her irritation level rise as he still tugged at the jacket.

"When later?" he persisted. "Tonight? I could come by your place? I could bring dinner," he offered.

"No, not tonight. I have a date." She lifted her head and looked into his face, seeing a fleeting look of hurt settle then disappear.

"The doc again?" The look might have been fleeting but his voice sounded like it would take a team of doctors to mend.

"Yeah, he's coming over tonight for dinner. I'm sorry." She turned to face him, looking around to see if anyone was paying attention to them.

Everyone was working, the CSU techs doing their thing, collecting samples, taking pictures. The dogs and their handlers were gone, a few uniforms were stringing crime scene tape. And them, that was it.

She put her hand on Riley's arm. "That kiss was a mistake. It shouldn't have happened." His face turned stony and hard and she knew she was losing him. "We're partners, and we're friends. Anything more, well, it just complicates things too much. You know that."

A multitude of emotions flitted across his face, disbelief, hurt, anger, and then finally, resignation. "Well, you can't blame me for trying. You've got this, right?"

"Yeah, sure. Where are you going?" Concern made her reach out and touch his arm again, and she flinched when he pulled away.

"Move my car. I'll be back soon and then we can go into the office." He turned and almost trotted off, his long legs eating up the distance as she watched him go.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine:

He slowly closed the door to his home, leaning against it and waited as he stared down the hallway that led to where she was. It would come, he knew it. First it would be her voice, yelling and degrading. Then she would stumble into the hallway, daring him to speak back to her, daring him to argue. Which, he wouldn't, it didn't matter how much he wanted to or how wrong she was. Or how very much her words hurt him. He would listen and nod his head. She was always right. She'd told him so often enough.

But tonight, just this one night, he wished she would leave him alone.

He dropped his bag by the hall closet, grimacing at the seemingly loud thump. He knew she'd have heard that. His ears strained to hear her ponderous footsteps getting up from her chair where she was watching her "programs". She never missed them, and if he interrupted her, oh boy-o, there'd be hell to pay.

When it stayed quiet, he snuck forward, his boots squeaking in the silence of the apartment on the sticky linoleum floor. He winced and slowly kicked them off, his socks showing whitely against the dirty floor, picking them up to take them to his room. A place for everything and everything in its place, she'd always told him, making him put away his things before she'd rip out dresser drawers and dump their contents on the floor and the cot that was his bed. She'd stood over him, making him refold everything, making sure the corners were perfect, the edges neat, the piles tidy. She watched him close the final drawer, his shoulders slumped, his arms shaking. She'd patted his cheeks gently, smiling in approval before turning and ripping the blankets and sheets off his cot. A slap to his face and a well aimed kick to his butt had sent him to work, trying to remake the bed exactly right the first time so he wouldn't have to do it again and again until she was satisfied.

But she was never satisfied.

"Did you get my black licorice, boy?" her voice rang out from the front room, harsh and uncaring.

He patted his pockets, suddenly uncertain if he had or not. He thought he had. He remembered going into the store but had he actually gotten the candy? His heart raced in fear until he felt the paper bag crinkle under his searching fingers. He pulled it out with a quick sigh of relief and hurried in to give it to her.

"Well? I asked you a simple damn question, boy. Did you get me my licorice?"

"Yes, ma'am," he answered, holding the bag out from as far away as he could get. He couldn't believe how much he hated her. She'd haunted him, harassed him, belittled him and abused him for as long as he could remember. "You think my arms grew while you was lollygagging today? Bring me the damn bag, boy, now!" Her chin wobbled when she yelled and her arm came up as if she would strike him. He hurried and dropped the bag into her hand, managing to get away before she could hit him.

"I wasn't lollygagging, Grandma," he said as he watched her tear open the bag and sink her too big, too white false teeth into the first piece. He never knew how she managed to eat the sticky candy with her fake teeth, but she always did, smacking her lips over each piece. "I was working."

"Oh, yeah. I forgot. You're so important now with that big job of yours. Maybe I should call down there and tell them what kind of person your really are. Maybe I should tell them what you do at night. What do you think?" She turned and glared at him with her mouth full of half masticated candy, waiting for him to say something, anything that would give her an excuse to hurt him. "You ain't fooling me like you fool all the rest of them. I know what you are inside. You're a dirty little boy who thinks he's so much better than all us regular people."

He shook his head slowly and started backing away from where she sat. He wanted so badly to argue with her, to tell her how completely wrong she was. But the words were caught behind the lump of fear in his throat.

"Where you going?" she hissed the question at him. "Yeah, you're too good to be in the same room with me, too high and mighty now. I bet you got some girl now thinking you're so wonderful." She cackled and black spittle flew from her mouth landing on the massive dress covered bosoms. "I wonder if she'd think you were so wonderful if I told her how you wet your bed, how you're just a pathetic and miserable excuse for a man who can't even hold his own bladder. Think she'd want you then?"

He backed away faster, his head shaking furiously, the words straining against lips that would never utter then. He could almost feel the sharp sewing scissors she'd kept in a drawer in her room, scissors that she would get out and make him hold while she stroked and petted his penis, pulling on it until it hurt. Then she would make him take those scissors and lay his penis across the open blades, her hand coming down over his smaller ones until the blades would pinch and slice his flesh, leaving small cuts that would bleed down his thighs and drip onto the floor.

His stocking feet hit the threshold of the room, his hand scrabbling back to find the old glass door knob, now filmed with age and dirt. He pushed the door open, running down the hall to scoop up his boots before turning into his own small room. Only then, his back against the closed door, did he feel safe. Only here, in the dark and quiet of his own room did he once more feel in control of anything in his life. He sank down on the same small cot he'd slept in since the day his parents had died when he was four, leaving him with only one surviving relative to take him in. She'd done so, stressing familial duty that her daughter hadn't felt the need to do. She'd made him remember everyday that he was a charity case that she paid his bills and he owed her his life. Curling into a ball, he lay down on the too small cot, his body shaking in the cold room. The blanket was too thin, the pillow too miserly. But they were what he was used too. He'd managed for a while to free himself of her, going to college, getting a degree, making his own way.

He'd met a girl, fallen in love and thought about marriage. They dated for three weeks before he got the nerve to kiss her, two months before he let himself go into her apartment after a date. It was almost six months before he spent the night with her, losing his virginity. Afterwards, he'd made excuses and gone home, going straight to his shower. Scrubbing with hot water and bleach hadn't seemed like enough. Instead he went to the kitchen sink and found his Brillo pads, using them on that part of him that seemed so dirty. That part of him that had enjoyed what they had done so much.

Amazingly enough, he'd married the girl, learning to hide his repugnant feelings about what they did in the bedroom though he'd never gotten over it. And then he'd gotten the call. His grandmother had gotten sick, she needed him. His grandmother had pulled him back, using his secret against him, threatening to tell, to ruin the façade of his life if he didn't take care of her. He'd gotten a job and a divorce. And then somehow, his grandmother found out his other secret, his dark secret. How she'd found out, he didn't know and it didn't really matter. She'd told him details, the nights that he hunted, the prey he'd taken. She'd laughed and shown him newspaper clippings, the ones from college, the ones from his time of freedom, when he'd tried to deny her accusations. She'd always known, she had said. It was what he was made of, this desperate need. And she would help him to continue. He just had to take care of her.

So, he came home. He slept in this same room that held such dark and terrible memories. He lived with her cackles and her abuse. And he hunted.

He tucked his long hands between his thighs, warming them against his groin. Images of her came into his head, the eyes that saw into him and accepted who he was. She never accused or abused. She never made him feel less a man or laughed at him. And last night, as she'd writhed under him, her breasts pressing against his chest, her eyes pleading with him to continue, her mouth begging for the pleasure only he could give her, he'd been a man he could be proud of. A man his parents would have been proud of. A man who could stand up to the grandmother, who could wrap his fingers around her flabby neck and squeeze until her lifeless body flopped to the floor, her eyes bulging and those too white false teeth pushed out by her swollen tongue.

He smiled at the image, seeing himself standing straight and tall as he stared down at the corpse of the woman who had made his life an unimaginable hell. His mind superimposed the other, the image of her over it, her hands beckoning. She was naked and smooth, her white thighs already open and ready to accept him, eager to love him. He was her hero, her knight. He was the man who made her feel things she'd never felt before. Who gave her pleasure she didn't know existed. He remembered the way she'd felt around him, supple and silky. The resistance of her body when he'd pushed into her had been nothing compared to the way she'd felt, soft and hot, sleek satin around him. He'd taken her fast and furiously, calling her name out in whispered ecstasy, telling her he loved her. And when he'd filled her body with his seed, he swore she'd screamed out his name with her own sweet joy. It was only after, only when his arms gave out and his body slumped next to hers that he felt the blood.

And then what little light from the clearing shone on her face.

It wasn't her, only a cheap facsimile. She'd cheated him again, running from him when they could have been so happy, could have run from the Grandmother together. His fury propelled the knife he didn't know he had in his hand, and he slashed and hacked at the already dead body. Her life had pooled out in the blood that soaked the earth beneath her from the first slash of his knife as he'd dragged her to this clearing. She'd died as he raped her, her struggles and cries growing weaker with each frantic beat of her heart that pumped the blood from her body.

After the fury had been fear. The fear of being caught. The predator no longer felt strong and sure, in control and in charge. He was now the prey. And one small mistake, one tiny missed detail and they would find him.

Afterwards, once the cleaning up had been done, the body left to be found, he ran back to his small cot, lying under the thin blanket to shake with cold and fear. He always promised himself no more. No more death, no more girls. He had to prove himself, he had to be someone that she could love, someone that she could care for.

Then he thought of his rival...


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten:

Riley walked down the long hallway that lead to the elevator in Buffy's apartment, his hands full of Chinese take out boxes. The smell that wafted up to him, spicy vegetables, sautéed chicken and beef, sweet and tangy sauces, made his mouth water. He could only hope that she would accept this for what it was, a kind of apology for this morning, for making a fool of himself in her bathroom. Even though he'd never forget the way she'd felt in his arms, her petite form pressed against his chest, her breasts soft and naked but for the towel that had been the only barrier between them.

"Damn," he cursed as he felt his body start to stir, just from the memory. "Down boy," he ordered as he pushed the button for the elevator with his knuckle. This wasn't about seduction. This was about making amends.

The doors slid open and he stepped inside, turning and knuckling the button for her floor, watching the doors slide shut slowly. He stood at the back of the car, watching the numbers slip slowly upwards as the elevator crept its way towards her floor.

Leaving the elevator, he hurried down the hall, knocking on her door with his knee.

"You're early..." Buffy started to say as she pulled open the door. Her hair was wet and she was wrapped in her robe. She stared with confusion at him. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, geez, thanks for the warm greeting, partner. I guess I'm not who you were expecting." He stepped past her, dropping the box of Chinese on her kitchen counter. There were pots bubbling on the stove, the spicy aroma of spaghetti sauce, garlic and onions, basil and oregano, filling the air with mouth watering aromas. "I didn't know you could cook," he said, looking over where she still stood by the open door.

"You never asked. It was the one skill my mother made me learn, and truthfully, I never minded. But you didn't answer me. What are you doing here? I told you I was having company tonight."

Riley lifted the lid on the red sauce, pulling open a kitchen drawer with the ease of familiarity and taking out a small spoon. He dipped it into the sauce, blowing on it before tasting it. "Needs more salt," he said, putting down the lid. "I guess I forgot. I thought we could have dinner and do some work tonight." He dropped the spoon into the sink, staring at the red stain that splattered on the white porcelain. He heard her close the door with a small click and then sensed her move into the kitchen. He could feel her eyes upon his back as she waited for him to turn and look at her.

"We need to talk."

He smiled as he stared at the red stain. "But now's not a good time, is it?" He turned, lifting his hand and touching her cheek. "You have a date to get ready for. We can do this some other time. You keep the Chinese. You could eat if for leftovers tomorrow or something." Riley managed to keep the smile on his face though he wondered if it looked as strained as he felt. "I'll talk to you tomorrow, partner. Have fun tonight." He walked past her and towards the door. "Don't forget the salt," he said, opening the door and slipping through.

Buffy felt the single tear slip down her cheek and wiped it away angrily. He had no right to come in here when she was trying to have a personal life and make her feel guilty. No right at all. And then to just walk out on her, she turned and glowered at the boxes of food he'd left, murdering them with the glare she wished she'd been able to use on him.

When they just sat there, instead of boiling over and flaming in response to her ire, she grabbed them and pushed them into her fridge. Slamming the door, she turned to the food she was preparing. "Needs more salt, damn him. God! He can be such an asshole!"

She lifted the lid on the sauce, dipping her own spoon in and tasting it. She closed her eyes and sighed, reaching for her small bowl of salt and adding some before stirring it again and then putting down the lid. She turned down the heat and then went back to her room, reaching into her closet for something comfortable and sexy, but not too sexy. She didn't want to seem too eager, but after her coffee date with Angel today at the hospital and the kiss he planted on her lips before she left, a kiss that had curled her toes, she knew how she wanted tonight to end.

Settling on satin pants and a soft cashmere sweater, both in a shade of green just a few shades lighter than her eyes, she slid on matching underwear and pulled the sensuous material over her skin. The sweater's v neckline left a great deal of skin exposed and clung to her curves as if it were a lover's hand. She ruffled her wispy curls with her hands, shaking her head to make them fall into place then applied a light coat of makeup. Leaving her feet bare, she hurried to the intercom when it buzzed. "Yes?"

"Hi." Angel's smooth, sexy voice sounded over the intercom, and Buffy couldn't help but smile at it.

"Come on up," she said, pushing the button for the door.

She hurried to the refrigerator, pulling out the bottle of wine she'd picked to go with her dinner. Leaving it open upon the counter, she went to the door and waited. When the knock came, she mentally counted to twenty then reached out and turned the knob.

He stood just outside the door, his eyes roaming over the picture she made. "Wow," he breathed. "You look absolutely stunning." His eyes took in every detail, including the bare feet. He handed her the single white rose he'd brought her. "I thought I'd be slightly more traditional this time. Maybe we won't have a murder investigation interrupt our evening."

She smiled, accepting the rose and reaching up on tiptoe to place a light kiss upon his cheek. "And I've already fixed dinner, it's ready any time you are, Doctor."

Angel inhaled, breathing in her scent, a mixture of floral perfume and spicy woman. He let his hand rest lightly against her lower back, feeling her skin against his fingers where the sweater pulled up as she reached for him. Her breasts brushed against his chest and he smiled, enjoying the way she felt against him. "So what did you make?" he asked lightly, following her in and watching as she got a bud vase down to put the rose in.

"Spaghetti with my father's special sauce and his secret garlic bread. I had to blackmail the recipe out of him and it wasn't easy." She took the vase over to the table and then went back to the kitchen, pouring the wine she'd gotten out. "Oh, no. I forgot to ask, are you on call tonight?"

"Nope, I'm all yours, for however long you want me," he quipped, taking the glass she handed him. He raised the glass, tapping it gently against hers, "To a beautiful woman, a lovely dinner and a night that can go anywhere," he said, taking a sip of the wonderful wine before letting his lips find hers for one intimate and incredible moment. Her face was flushed when he pulled back, her eyes bright and he had a hard time trying to keep it at that one kiss for right then. Not when he wanted more, when he wanted to taste her mouth and see if her flavor was sweeter than the wine or dark like passion. He wanted to touch her skin, slip his hands under the clinging fabric of her sweater and see if she was as soft and warm as she seemed.

"That was..." she stopped, unable to come up with the word.

"Yes," he said, smiling down at her. "It was."

She laughed as he'd meant her too and then went into the kitchen, adding the finishing touches to the dinner and rescuing the seasoned bread before it burnt. Then they sat and she beamed as he raved over her spaghetti, laughing at his jokes and listening to his stories of the ER. He asked questions about her cases, understanding when she couldn't get into detail about ongoing investigations. But he was interested, genuinely, which was something she wasn't used to with any date she'd gone on.

"So how long have you and Riley Finn been partners?" he asked, sitting back a little and picking up his refilled glass.

"Almost five years now," she said, sipping her own wine. "He trained me when I started homicide. I must have driven him nuts with all my questions and that puppy dog eagerness that you see in the newbie detectives. I was so damn proud of that gold badge, I think I stuck it in anyone's face that would look at it." She pushed her plate to the side, leaning her elbows on the table. "He even held my head when I saw my first torn up body."

"You sound like you two are close." Angel felt a little flare of jealousy. He tamped it firmly down, arguing with himself that if she were interested in Finn, he would be here.

"He's like a brother to me and in some ways even closer. You learn a lot about someone when you're on a stake out for twelve hours in a small car and the air conditioner doesn't work."

"Hopefully that he wears a really strong and long lasting deodorant," he said, listening to her laugh with a tingle of pleasure. "You don't do enough of that."

"Wear deodorant?" she asked cautiously.

"No," he laughed, shaking his head. "Laugh. It looks good on you."

* * *

Buffy rose to take the dishes to the kitchen setting them into the sink and putting away the leftovers while Angel did his best to "help" but in this instance it was to stand in her way. He touched her when he could, brushing his hand against her body by accident, handing her his plate and letting his hand slide against hers. It was as arousing as his scent, as inviting as the looks he was giving her.

He finally took her hand, pulling her into the teddy bear decorated living room and sitting down on the sofa, pushing the big gray bear out of his way. Pulling her down on his lap, he kissed her softly. "I've wanted to do this all night, since you opened that door. You really got to me with the bare feet, detective," he said, grinning.

"Great," she said, her fingers tracing along his face. "I'm dating a guy with a foot fetish. I swear, homicide finds the freaks quicker than vice does. But I guess you are no worse than my last boyfriend."

"Really, and what was his deal?" he asked, though not really interested. He kissed her neck, nibbling on the long muscle of her throat.

"Oh he had this thing for handcuffs and nightsticks." She moaned, her hands running through his dark hair, feeling his arousal against her thigh. He felt so good and was very inventive with his mouth, stirring all kinds of feelings deep inside of her.

"You might have to show me that one day," he said, his face buried in the bend of her neck where it met her shoulder. He reached up, gently pulling the soft sweater off of her shoulder, his tongue sneaking out to savor her heated flesh. She tasted like sin, hot and dark and completely too tempting.

Buffy moaned, moving against his mouth as he teased her senses, sweet shivers of need made her nipples harden and her head tip back. "That's the good thing about dating a cop," she whispered. "We have all the good toys."

"I'll say," Angel sighed the words, his hands slipping up the soft material of her sweater to cup her breasts, lifting them with his hands. "These are some pretty nice toys."

A surprised laugh bubbled out of her and she cupped his face in her hands. "I like you."

"I like you, too." He pulled her closer, kissing her lips. "Wanna go steady?"

"Hmmm, let me think about it," she murmured against his lips, deepening the kiss for an earth shattering moment. "No," she decided. "But I would like to go to bed. And I would like for you to come, too." She stood, her legs slightly unsteady and held out her hand to him.

With a grin, he sat there, his eyes drinking in the sight of her. Her lips were slightly swollen, her short hair tousled from his hands. Her eyes were half closed, sexy bedroom eyes that shot green fire at him. Her sweater was still off of her shoulder, revealing smoothly rounded satiny skin.

She was spectacular.

"With me?" he asked, putting his hand on his chest. "You want to go to bed with me?"

Buffy rolled her eyes. "No, with Mr. Bear. Of course with you. Now are you coming or do I have to get physical?"

Angel took her hand letting her pull him up and off of the couch. He followed her back into her bedroom, watching the swing of her hips under the satin pants. She was sexy and funny, sweet and tough. She had a cop's mouth and a siren's provocative passion. And he couldn't wait to sink into the hot flesh of her body.

Play turned to passion quickly and he couldn't help himself. He pulled back on her hand that he held so that she turned and fell against him. With a groan, he pushed her against the wall, his hands pulling her up and against him until she was on her toes. Grinding his hips against her, he took her mouth in a kiss of pure demand.

Buffy gasped, feeling that kiss in every part of her. Her hands rose, going around his neck, one twisting into his hair as his tongue insisted she respond, thrusting into her mouth to tangle with her own. Before her world could right, he was tearing her sweater over her head, throwing it to the floor next to them.

His mouth found hers again, refusing to let her catch her breath. He flicked open the back hooks of her bra with ease, pulling it from her body without taking his mouth from hers.

When his hands touched her breasts, Buffy thought she'd explode, desire, tension, need all boiled low in her belly, compounded by his kisses. He cupped her breasts, stroking them, squeezing and toying with her nipples until whimpers came from her mouth.

Angel dropped to his knees, his mouth at just the right level to draw her hard nipple into his mouth. Listening to her cries of pleasure, feeling her writhe under his hands and mouth were all conspiring to drive him nuts. He played with her nipples, torturing her with slow laps of his tongue until she dug her fingers in his hair, pulling him closer to her.

"Hmm," she moaned as he suckled her, trading nipples until both were hard and pointed, throbbing with the pleasure he'd given her. She shrieked when he rose suddenly, lifting her with an arm under her bottom to throw her over his shoulder.

He dumped her in the middle of her bed, following her down. "Take off my shirt," he said, his lips finding hers.

Her hands shook as she found the buttons that ran down the front of his shirt. Fumbling with them, she finally managed to get it undone, pushing it down his wide shoulders and off his arms. Her hands came up, touching him, feeling his hot skin. She kissed his chest, finding his flat male nipples and sliding her tongue over them until they hardened and he gasped at the contact. His chest was well formed, wide enough to cushion her head and to lean on, his stomach was hard, defined without being bulky. A small trail of dark hair led from just below his belly button to disappear inside the pants that he wore. She traced that trail of hair with her fingers, feeling his muscles contract under her searching hand. "This isn't the body of a pencil pushing doctor, doc. How'd you get so hunky?"

Angel felt her tormenting fingers tease just under the waistband of his pants and groaned. "I'm not a normal doctor."

She pushed him back, rolling with him until she was straddling his hips, her satin pants gleaming in the light from the hallway that shone through the open door. "I would say you weren't," she drawled slowly, sliding her fingers down his chest and over his stomach in a long continuous stroke. She leaned over him, her hands busy undoing his pants and reaching inside. "I want to check out your bedside manner though, doc." She pushed under his shorts finding his erection with her smooth palm. He was long and hard, throbbing against her skin. "Oh, yes," she said with a grin as he inhaled at the way her hand felt, "very nice bedside manner, doc."

"I aim to please," he growled. "But I don't remember this being in the Hippocratic Oath."

Buffy laughed, sliding down his legs a little to get a hold of his pants to pull them down. "Maybe next time you should check out the fine print," she said, getting off of him to pull off his shoes and socks.

"Do you come with the fine print?" Angel lifted his hips, helping her finish stripping him naked. He laid on the bed, his cock hard and pointing straight up.

Buffy smiled, her eyes on the blatant display of his attraction for her. "If that does, I will," she said.

Angel snagged her hand, pulling her back down on top of him, finding her mouth with his. He felt the slippery satin of her pants rubbing against his bare legs, brushing coolly against his cock as she moved against him. He tried to roll her under him but she resisted, pushing down on his shoulders and sliding down his body once more. He could feel her breasts rubbing against his chest and then his stomach. Then his cock was caught between those heaving mounds, rubbing around him as she squeezed them together with her hands. The feel of those soft breasts around his cock was amazing, soft warm flesh that held him with tight sweet friction. He closed his eyes, savoring the way it felt.

When her mouth slid over the tip of his cock, he jumped, staring down the length of his body to find her lying between his thighs. Her lips were stretched around the width of his cock, her tongue slipping under it to tease with little flicks against sensitive skin.

Buffy watched his face, her green eyes huge as they looked up at him. He tasted so good and felt so wonderful in her mouth. She'd never been big on oral sex but she'd wanted to do it for him. Her lips covering her teeth, she bobbed up and down, taking as much of him as she could.

His hand tangled in the short strands of her hair, his breathing became heavy and deep. Her mouth felt so good, like hot, wet suction, driving him mad with her slow deliberate movements. He wanted to touch her, to taste her flesh, to slide between her thighs and lose himself in the heat and tightness he knew he'd find. "Come here."

She crawled up the bed, her eyes gleaming, a soft smile upon her face. His hand caught in her hair, pulling her face down to his. Their lips met, open mouthed kisses meant to arouse, wet and sweet. He groaned into her mouth, feeling her lips curve.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" he said between kisses.

"I don't think I'd be doing this if I didn't enjoy it," she said then ran her hands through his hair, pressing her naked breasts against his chest as she found his lips again.

"That's not what I meant."

She lifted her head. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, you are enjoying twisting my insides up, making me think about you when I should be concentrating on my patients. I can't get you out of my head," he paused, bringing her back down to kiss once more. "I think about you, wonder what you're doing, whether I'll see you or not, if you're okay. I think I'm falling in love with you."

Buffy felt her heart stop then start beating harder. Her mouth opened but no words came out.

Angel laughed. "You don't have to say it back, Buffy. We haven't known each other that long."

She laid her fingers against his lips, silencing his words. "I don't know how I feel, but I do know that I am attracted to you and that I want to be with you. You've kind of blown me away." For a moment, a vision of what Riley had looked like when he'd walked away from her apartment popped into her head. She pushed it away along with the sadness that had come with it. Tonight was for her, and she wanted to be right here with him.

"I know another way to blow you away," he said, rolling her over onto her back. "But you are definitely wearing too many clothes for what I have in mind." He pulled her pants off, leaving her clad in only a tiny lacy silk thong in bright red. Against her slim pale stomach, the red was like a flag, drawing his eyes and hands to her hips. He pulled the band away from her stomach, letting his lips sink to her stomach, feeling her muscles contract under his mouth. He could smell her now, her arousal a tangy earthy scent that made his nostrils twitch. Sliding his hands around and under her, he squeezed the taut curves of her ass, loving the way they felt on his palms. His hands stroked down her legs and then back up while his mouth explored her stomach and ribs, moving down and then back up, then down again coming ever closer to the wet flesh between her thighs.

Buffy moaned and squirmed, her breath coming out in panting gasps, lifting her hips when his hands finally came back, pulling down the thong before dropping it over the edge of the bed. He stared down at what he'd uncovered, letting his fingers slide over the sleek curls that covered her mound before moving lower. "God, you're driving me nuts. Touch me," she ordered.

"Is that a command?" he dropped a kiss on her pert nipple before sliding his fingers between her thighs.

Buffy felt his long finger slip between her swollen pussy lips, running along her wet slit to the tiny bump of her clit. He circled it, teasing her, making her hips move with a mind of their own as she desperately craved more from him. Her hands twisted against the sheets, fisting the material as the pleasure coiled inside of her. Her legs spread and then closed as she trapped his hand against her, begging for more.

He took his time, watching her slender body writhe on the bed, her slender form undulating against his hand as he pleasured her. He heard her gasp as she passed over the first line of ecstasy, saw her hurtling toward the next.

"Please," she gasped, begging as her eyes opened to stare up at him. "I want you in me."

He moved over her, pushing her thighs far apart, slipping between them. The heat and wetness of her cunt slipped over his cock and then around it as he pushed inside of her. She was tight around him, almost too tight, making him grit his teeth at the sensations spreading from his groin.

Buffy's hands went to his ass, pulling him closer, forcing him to move in her. He was taking her places she'd never thought she was able to go, making her feel things she'd never felt before. He thrust into her hard, his head back as he felt every pulse of her spongy walls around his hard shaft. She watched him even as her own desire tried to pull her in the erotic world of passion's bliss. He was one beautiful man, even with his face contorted in concentration. His body seemed to shine in the dim light, his muscles moving under his skin as he made love with her. His hands seemed huge against her, his fingers stroking and touching parts of her that had never felt so sensitive. He touched her with a gentleness that amazed and tormented her, making her feel things that she hadn't thought she'd ever find with a man.

She reached up and touched his face, pulling him down, finding his mouth with hers. Emotions, raw and intricate, seemed to coil inside of her until she was moving under him with a purpose that was driven by a mixture of caring and lust.

When the pinnacle was reached, when his hands found hers, pulling her arms to the side and entwining with her fingers, she cried out in infinite joy. He pulsed inside her pussy, feeling the spasms of her muscles around his cock that seemed to milk every little bit of his come from inside of him.

Then it was over, his breath harsh and rasping, hers still catching as he collapsed, his elbows barely holding his weight from off of her body. She could hear his heart racing along with hers, and she stroked his back enjoying the contact.

"Angel, I..."

He lifted his head as she paused. "Yes," he urged, stroking his hands through the short wispy tresses of her hair.

"I..." she stared up into his face, her eyes suddenly uncertain.

What she was about to say was lost as the phone on her night table started to ring.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven:

Buffy hurried down the bank of the river. This being the second time she'd been called to this river in as many days.

A body waited below. Another victim of the same killer, from what she'd been able to gather over the phone, left just a few yards from the last one.

She'd left Angel back in her apartment, snuggled into her bed looking decidedly masculine amidst her flowered sheets. He'd been warm and solid next to her, and very hard to leave. She could still taste his last kiss on her lips, the feeling of his body against hers as he tried his hardest to make her want to hurry back to him.

Riley stood off to the side as she finally slid the last few feet to the bottom of the hill. She handed him the coffee that she'd stopped and got without a word. "Sorry," he said. "I told Chief I could handle it myself but he said to call you." He shrugged and walked over to where the body was lying under a white sheet that was slowly turning red.

"It's fine. Don't worry about it." Buffy bent to lift a corner of the sheet to look at the body. Another girl, blonde, blue eyes this time, but still wide open with a look of horrified terror in them. She lifted the blanket further, seeing the long wounds on the naked body. "Raped?" she asked.

"Yeah, and he did quite the job on her. She's got bruises and contusions like nothing I've ever seen before. And he took a souvenir this time. Her ear is missing." Riley crouched down next to her. "How was the date? I didn't want to interrupt it again."

"The date was fine, and you didn't interrupt anything." She stood and looked around the small clearing. The body was close to the river but not wet, not like the last girl. She'd been left posed, her body straight, her arms at her side, blood pooled under the body. This was the primary kill site; it had to be, unless there was a blood trail. "Did your find blood anywhere but under the body?" she asked him.

"No, she was definitely killed here. He took her clothing with him, unless it's someplace else in the park. How he got in here, I don't know. We've had guys on all the entrances all day since the last murder." He lifted up a plastic bag. "He also left us the murder weapon."

Buffy took the bag staring at the knife it contained. Small, with a short blade, the handle was metal. It was a blade used for precision cuts, a scalpel, very sharp and covered in blood. She turned the bag around in her hands staring at it as if it could tell her the name of the killer. "Has it been dusted for prints?" she asked, her eyes still on the knife.

"Yeah, it's clean." He stepped back from the body, careful of where he put his feet. The park was a big scene to cover and he didn't want to foul the crime scene. "He's got a scalpel, he's probably also got latex gloves."

"What about a purse? Do we have an ID on her?"

"Nothing yet. Did you see her?"

"I know," she said, huffing a breath that sent her bangs flipping up. "I saw, she looks like me. And it's creeping me out. But what am I supposed to do about it?"

"Have you noticed anyone following you? Have you had any strange phone calls or hang ups?" He rubbed her shoulder, feeling the knots that seemed huge under her skin caused by stress.

"Just you," she said, trying to lighten up the tension between the two of them. "Besides that, no, no one."

"You've been getting a lot of press recently since the Walsh case. Maybe someone is fixated on you. I'm going to talk to Chief and see about getting some protection on you, Buffy. He might be going for substitutes now, but you never know when he'll want the real thing." Riley pulled his phone out of the pocket of his jacket and flipped it open.

"I'll lose them, so don't bother." She walked away from him, hearing his furious curse and then the click as he flipped his phone closed. She walked the perimeter of the crime scene, searching the ground with the flashlight that she'd pulled from her pocket. She heard him following her and sighed, ready for the fight he was about to give her.

"Buffy..."

"I don't want to discuss this, Riley. I can't do my job if I've got people following me around. And I'm a cop, dammit. I protect other people, I can damn sure protect myself. So just drop it!" She could hear the tension in her own voice and hated it.

His hand dropped on her shoulder, flipping her around so that she was forced to crick her neck up to see him. "No," he said furiously. "No, I won't just drop it. We are more than just partners, Buffy. And I don't want to lose you no matter how you feel about me." He dropped his hand off of her shoulder and took a deep breath.

"Dammit!" Buffy dropped her gaze, taking a step back and away from him. "You know as well as I do that I can't work with a couple of uniforms tailing me. But I can't fight you. There has to be a way to compromise."

"Yeah, there is. I'll call and tell him what's going on, then whatever the decision is, he's made it, not you or me." Riley scowled down at her, trying to intimidate her.

"Can we talk about this later?" Buffy nodded towards the gathering press people that were huddling against the yellow saw horses used to blockade the hill and keep them back. "We don't need to have headlines screaming about lover's spats in the newspapers."

"I wish," he said under his breath. "Fine, but we will discuss it later and you aren't leaving my sight."

"Fine," she shrugged. Let him bitch and browbeat, she wasn't doing anything she didn't want to no matter who threw the fits. "Let's try something new for today and actually work the case."

They searched the area surrounding the perimeter and found nothing. Even the grass didn't seem disturbed anywhere but around the body where the blood had soaked into the ground. The crime scene unit finally arrived taking over from where they'd stopped.

Buffy stopped a uniformed cop who was walking back to where his car was parked. She smiled when she saw his face, it was the same cop who'd called her a bitch the last time she'd ran into him. "Take a couple more units and start doing some dumpster diving," she ordered him, not hiding the glee in her voice at ordering him around. "We're looking for clothing, a purse and possibly an ear. Check out about five blocks..."

"Six," Riley interrupted. "Make it at least six blocks from here."

"Okay," she said, staring up at him with a frown. "Check out a six block radius, all dumpsters, trash cans, alleys. Every fast food restaurant, I want inside trash checked as well. Oh and don't forget to look for her shoes, too, Officer."

"Is that all?" he asked, his voice belligerent.

"No, as a matter of fact, it isn't." Buffy stepped forward only stepping back when Riley's hand came down on her shoulder.

"Get out of here and do as you're ordered, Officer. Or else I will let her loose on you."

As soon as he stomped away, she turned to Riley. "Don't you ever do that again," she snarled.

"Taking it out on him isn't going to do you any good, Buf. We both know you're frustrated and pissed off." He smiled staring down at the cantankerous look on her face. "Did you know you're beautiful when you want to cut off someone's balls?"

"Then if you ever do that again, I'll be downright glowing." She stomped away, leaving him standing there staring after her.

* * *

"Oz!" she called, seeing the investigator on his knees next to the body, picking up something with his tweezers.

He looked up at her call and waved one bloodstained gloved hand in her direction. "Your ten card is in my pocket, Buffy. Let me finish here and I'll get it out for you." He wasn't even going to argue with her this time about it. He opened up a small brown bindle envelope, dropping what he'd found into it and folding it to stuff in a pocket of the vest he wore.

"What'd you find?" she asked, curious.

"Shards of glass, probably from off our unsub's shoes. Looks like colored glass, but I'll have to get it to the lab before I can tell you anything for sure." He reached in his pocket and pulled out the thick white card, carefully holding it between the tips of his fingers.

Buffy took it from him, tucking it into her own pocket. She'd put them into the computer as soon as they left here. "Find anything else?" she asked, watching as he combed the ground next to the body, before carefully flipping up an edge of the sheet. He pulled small paper bags out of his case and a couple of heavy duty rubber bands and picked up the body's hand in his own.

"Nothing probative, but we're still looking. I want to get her hands bagged so when he coroner's guys get here they can take her right away. I'm going to tag her special processes and go over the body myself at the morgue."

"Good, not that Giles doesn't do a superior job, but I'd rather have you checking this one out."

"Um, Buf, have you looked at her yet?" Oz glanced up from where he was slipping the paper bag over one of the body's hands. His eyes were curious but she could also see worry there, and that tempered the snide remark that almost came from her lips.

"Yes, I've seen her, yes."

"And the one yesterday, you saw her too?"

"Yes, Oz, this our third body in similar circs. And they all look like me." She felt a shiver run through her, hating having to admit to this.

"I know this is a stupid thing to say but I have to say it. Be careful. I kind of like working with you."

Buffy smiled. "Thanks, Oz. And the feeling's returned. Not many of you investigators will allow me to step all over your cases. And I appreciate it. Now, take care of our Jane Doe, I'm going to go run these prints."

He waved her off, lifting the other hand to bag.

Buffy had one more stop to make before she walked out of the park.

Detective Gavin Park, who used to be a homicide detective and became burned out with the long hours and the hectic life. Instead of losing everything, his family included, he took a step back and went to school for photography, becoming the department crime photographer. He came toward her now, lugging his cameras and photo bags. "Hey," he said, setting down his stuff at his feet. "What you got for me?"

"Another murder, Gav. He's not waiting long between kills at all, so I need your help. Can you get your shots to me ASAP? And get me some shots of the crowd; I need everything you can get. Detailed ones of the body, also, Gav, please." She turned and stared at the sheet covered body, noting that Oz was off to the side, once more bent over poking through the grass.

"Sure thing," he smiled at her and lifted his camera, pulling off the lens cap and taking a quick shot of her. "You know, if I could get you to model for me, I could quit this gig and go into more professional photography. You are much prettier than my usual subjects." He gave her a hangdog look, begging with his eyes.

"You are a dirty man, Gavin Park. You'd want me to pose naked and we know your wife wouldn't go along with that." She reached up and patted him on the cheek, smiling like she knew he wanted her to.

She looked around, seeing Riley talking to a couple of officers, looking over his shoulder at her as they walked away. He smiled and she smiled back. They'd been friends a long time and she knew that he cared about her. And she cared about him, too.

"You ready to get to the station, I need to put these prints into AFIS and see if we get any hits." She stopped and looked up at him, seeing the question in his eyes. "Yeah, I understand how you feel. It just doesn't mean that I'm going to go along with it. And no, I don't want a team on me. Right now, we'll just go with you being my personal body guard while I'm at work, okay?"

"And when you aren't at work? What then?"

She sighed. "You just don't know when to stop, do you?" She turned, ready to tackle the hill and head back up to her car.

"Where you going?" he asked, grabbing her arm.

She looked at the big hand that held her arm and then followed it up, allowing her glare to get darker. With the slightly yellow cast to her face from the bruises that were still healing from being hit by Adam Walsh, her glare had extra impact. He dropped his hand, but didn't back down.

"If I'm your body guard, then you need to tell me where you're going. So?"

Buffy sighed. "My car is up there and I'm not leaving it on the street. You can follow me to the station if you want."

"My car is over there in the lot," he said, jerking his thumb back towards the main entrance to the park.

"Then I guess you'd better run," she said and started up the hill.

The press attacked her as soon as she reached the top. She pushed through them as if they weren't there, ignoring their questions, stalking past the recorders and the cameras as they flashed in her face. She walked past the cops on traffic duty, waving at one that she knew before heading down the alley where she'd left her Mustang.

The dark of the alley seemed sinister and strangely silent at this time of the night. Traffic was at a minimum, only those out heading home from bars or a late second shift were about. Or those that were looking for trouble. She could almost feel eyes on her and quickened her step, making sure that her badge was easily seen, hooked to her belt.

The hand that grabbed at her arm was huge and brawny, the knuckles bruised and knotted as if recently in a brawl. She twisted, her hands going to his wrist, her body pushing back against his to use his weight against him.

"Ouch! Buffy, dammit, why'd you go and do that for?"

Buffy pushed her 9 back into its holster. "Groo," she breathed, feeling as if the air could finally release from her lungs. "What are you doing here?"

"Riley knew I was around watching you guys work on the dead body and he called me. He asked me to make sure you made it to your car okay." He took the hand that she gave him and let her help him up.

"Next time say something before you grab me. I could have hurt you badly." She dusted off the back of his shirt with her hands.

"You're too little to hurt me much." He took her arm walking with her towards her car, crowding her a little.

"You need a ride anywhere?" she asked him, standing by her car, her keys out.

"Nope, just doing what Riley asked me to do," he said, standing there while she unlocked her car and got in.

Buffy waved and started the car, not breathing easy until she pulled out of the alley and left him behind. She had to laugh at herself.

* * *

Buffy beat Riley to the station, pulling into the underground parking and taking the stairs to the second floor. Turning on the lights in the small computer lab, she walked up to one of the stations and turned it on, pulling out the ten card and laying it in the scanner.

It took but seconds for the prints to be scanned into the computer, labeled with the case number and the date and then put into the Automated Fingerprint Information System or AFIS. It ran through the hundreds of thousands of prints in the database, comparing them to the ones that she'd put in. Hits could take seconds or hours, there was never a set time limit. So while she waited, Buffy got up and went into the homicide bullpen, dumping the sludge in the bottom of the coffee pot and cleaning it out. She made fresh coffee, smiling as the scent of rich black caffeine filled the room. With a hot mug in her hand, she grabbed the case file from her desk and headed back to the computer.

She sat at the long table in the lab, the file and photos spread out, her coffee at her elbow as she worked.

Riley found her there, a small magnifying glass in her hand as she stared at the photos of the body of Cassie Newton. He could see the computer working behind her, fingerprints flashing over the screen. "Hey," he said by way of greeting.

She looked up and smiled, waving him over. "Does this look strange to you?" she asked him, showing him the picture of the body.

"Strange how?" He took the picture and the glass, staring through it.

"Look at the way the body is, her hands and feet just so. Does that look posed to you?"

He took another look at the picture, noting the position of the extremities. "Yeah, she does. What about it?"

"The second victim was sprawled in the grass, her body half in the water. Her clothes were ripped off of her and strewn around the primary site, even her earrings, which were diamonds by the way, were torn from her ears and dropped to the ground. But did we find Cassie's clothes that she was wearing. And the body this morning," she paused to take a sip of her coffee. "Where are her clothes, her purse? I think he was interrupted. I think someone came along and spooked him and that's why the second body was just dumped and her things just left where they were dropped."

"So we need to find that person," he said, his eyes lighting up.

"Yeah, we need to find them." The computer beeped, indicating a match was found and Buffy turned, pushing the wheeled stool towards it. "We got a match on Victim three's prints. Darla Holtz." Buffy wrote down the address for her and hit the print key. Taking the ten card and the three copies she'd printed of the match on the fingerprints, she put them inside her file. Stacking all the photos up of the crime scene, she cleaned up her mess, and shut down the computer. "Come on, we need to get over there," she said.

"Yeah, and then we need to get some pictures of Victim two out and see if anyone saw her the night she was killed."

* * *

They headed toward the garage stopping only when being hailed by the chief. "DonFinn, Summers, in my office, now."

Buffy looked at Riley from under her eyelashes and turned, dropping her coffee cup on a table as she passed it. Walking into the Chief's office, she stood in front of his desk, not taking a chair and not having one offered to her. Riley stood next to her, staring down at the Chief.

"What's going on with this case?"

"We've got three victims sir, the third was just identified by her prints. That's where we were heading sir, to let the next of kin know. The first victim was baited to come to the warehouse where her body was found."

Riley continued, "We believe he may have been interrupted during the second murder sir. The other two crime scenes, the bodies were staged, the area mostly cleaned up. In the second, she was more thrown than posed, her clothing and personal items tossed haphazardly." Riley sighed. "He fucked up, sir. And if we can find out who interrupted, we may have a witness and get a break. We're going to be canvassing the park with pictures of the second victim. She hasn't been identified yet."

"It was brought to my notice that some of these victims are sharing some resemblences to you, Summers. Should I be worried?"

"No, sir. I'm capable of taking care of myself, and I'd like to be bait. We know he likes the park, we could set up a sting using me and lure him in."

"Remember what happened the last time you were bait? We almost lost you to the killer."

"And an SUV," Riley said under his breath earning himself an evil glare from his partner.

"If we need to use you, we will. But only as a last resort. Now get out of here and do your jobs."

They turned and left, Buffy waiting until the door closed behind them before smacking Riley in the arm. "One of these days, Justin, that mouth of yours is going to get you shot, and I'm going to be the one pulling the damn trigger."

"Yeah, yeah, heard it all before. You need to sing a new tune." He laughed, pulling a chunky wisp of her hair.

* * *

They jogged down the stairs to the garage, and Buffy slid into the passenger seat of Riley's car, reaching into her briefcase for the file she'd stuffed in there. She gave him the address and sat back while he drove in the light early morning traffic. Using the lights of the street lamps, she stared at the pictures they had of the two victims. It was eerie seeing their faces. A shudder shook her small frame and Buffy mentally regrouped, refusing to let this spook her to the point that she would be unable to do her job. Maybe they didn't look like her, maybe they looked like someone else, and she was just lucky enough to be among that number. She sighed.

Riley reached over and patted her hand, slowing to turn down into the ritzier section of town.

Here the houses were bigger, the lawns greener. Picket fences surrounded two story houses landscaped with roses and huge trees. No dogs barked or graffiti marred the area.

Riley pulled into a beautiful two story Tudor house. It was a far cry from where Cassie Newton had lived. He turned off the engine and waited for Buffy to slip the file back into her briefcase before walking up the steps toward the huge front door. A motion light flipped on, startling them both for a moment and then Riley leaned forward and hit the doorbell.

It pealed through the house, sounding too cheerful and chipper for so late at night. They waited and finally heard the front door being unlocked. Buffy flipped open her badge, holding it up to the man who answered the door. He was older, gray hair sticking up above his head from his pillow.

"Mr. Holtz?" Riley asked quietly.

"Yes," the man said, looking at their badges and then back up at their faces in surprised dismay. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"Do you know a Darla Holtz, sir?"

"She's my daughter. Why? What's wrong? She's okay isn't she?"

Riley stepped forward. "May we come in and talk to you sir?"

"Danny?" A woman's voice came from the stairs. "Is everything okay?"

Daniel Holtz stepped back from the door, holding it open so that they could come in. He ushered them into a plush living room done in shades of taupe and cream with big overstuffed furniture. A woman came in in a fluffy bathrobe. Her hand sought her husband's as she looked at the two detectives with scared eyes.

"It's about Darla, isn't it? She hasn't come home yet."

"Mrs. Holtz, I'm Detective Riley Finn and this is my partner Detective Buffy Summers. We have some bad news for you. Your daughter was found in the park tonight. I'm afraid she was dead."

Both parents looked stunned, Mrs. Holtz shaking her head in denial. And then they crumpled, Mr. Holtz holding onto his wife as she started to fall towards the floor. JRiley hurried over, taking her arm and leading her around to the sofa where he helped her to sit down.

"I'm so very sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Holtz" He took the glass that Buffy offered him, a glass that she'd found in the kitchen and filled with water.

"What happened? Was it an accident?"

"No, it wasn't, Dan and you know it. You saw those girls' pictures in the paper; you know what I told Darla. She had similar traits like them. It was that killer, wasn't it?" She sobbed and Buffy reached for a box of tissues that was sitting on a stand.

"We aren't sure yet, Mrs. Holtz." Buffy handed her a tissue and then sat down next to her, patting her hand gently. "Do you think you can answer a few questions? We know it's a terrible time, but if we could get some more information, it could help in our investigation."

"You ask," Daniel said, blowing his nose in a red bandana handkerchief, "we'll do our best to answer."

"Did your daughter say anything about maybe being followed or feeling uncomfortable the past couple of days?" Buffy picked up the other woman's hand.

"No, no, not that I can recall." She wiped her eyes and looked at Buffy. "You look so much like her," she said.

Buffy ducked her head a little uncomfortable with their eyes on her, especially if this was all her fault.

"Where was Darla headed tonight?" Riley asked, seeing his partner's unease.

"There was a party over in the apartments across from Big Lots. She has a lot of friends over there."

"Those apartments are on this side of the park," Buffy said. "What would she be doing in the park?"

The couple just shook their heads.

Buffy looked up, hearing Riley's phone. He stepped away from the couple and spoke in the phone.

"Can we see her?" Daniel suddenly asked Jenna. "Maybe you have the wrong girl. We should see her to make sure."

"Sir, we identified her using fingerprints. I'm sorry, but it is your daughter. She's being taken to the morgue but we'll make arrangement for you and your wife to see her in the morning." Buffy removed one of her cards from her wallet and left it sitting on their coffee table. "If you can think of anything, anything at all that might seem strange or out of whack for your girl, call me. If you call first thing in the morning, I will make sure to get a hold of Rupert Giles, our coroner, and he'll help you."

Mrs. Holtz nodded, her face buried.

Riley stood and they headed toward the door, showing themselves out as the parents of the murdered girl consoled each other.

"God, I hate doing that," Jhe said, shutting the door quietly behind them. "It never gets any easier."

Buffy patted him on the arm. "So what was the call," she asked.

"They found Darla's clothing and her purse. They're bringing them back into the station." He opened her car door for her and hurried around to his side, sliding behind the steering wheel. "Worth said they found something pretty interesting along with the clothing."

"Did he say what?" she felt her curiosity peaking.

"No, but they should be there by the time we get back."

He sped through the night, leaving a heartbroken couple behind.

* * *

Buffy was out of his car and jogging up the stairs of the station before he even put the car into park. He followed her, laughing at her exuberance for a case.

The uniform who Buffy had been on was sitting in the homicide bull pen, a cup of coffee in his hands, his feet up on Riley's desk. When Buffy walked into the room, he looked up at her and took a sip of his coffee. She walked by the desk, knocking his feet off and making him spill his coffee onto the front of his uniform. He snarled at her, jumping up to get into her face. "What's your problem?"

She smiled sweetly. "I have no problems, Mears," she said, reading his name from his uniform. "And if you don't get out of my face, you won't have any either."

"Is that some kind of threat?" He slammed the mug of coffee down on the desk, spilling it. "You've been on my case since that first night."

"I wouldn't be on your case if you'd do your damn job. Now get out of here and go do it."

He stared down at her, hatred in his eyes. His flickered, glancing up and behind her and then he stepped back and brushed past her, knocking into her shoulder.

Buffy turned and saw JRiley behind her, his eyes boring into the back of Warren Mears's head. There was a strange expression in those eyes, something that made her shiver a little before he turned and saw her staring. "Asshole," he said. "You wanna write him up or do you want me to?"

"Neither," she said. "Let's just work the case and let his commander worry about him." She turned toward the paper bag left on the top of Riley's desk. Pulling out a couple latex gloves from her coat pocket, she slipped them on and unfolded the bag.

"The jerk didn't even follow procedure," Riley grouched, staring at the bag. "He should have had a crime scene tech collect the evidence."

"Yeah, yeah, well, it's his fault. I want to see what he found." She pulled out a short sleeved green tee shirt that was ripped down the front. Blood stained one side of the rip as if he'd cut her in removing it. Under that was a short blue jean skirt. Two shoes were under that, one with the heel broken off, reminding JBuffy of the red pumps their second vic had been wearing. She set them down on Justin's desk, reaching in to pull out a bra. It was light green, lace, the front cut between the two cups. Blood stained the inside of one, and Buffy couldn't help the shudder, remembering her dream and the feel of the killer's mouth against her breast, lapping at her blood. She felt her heart beating faster, hating that a dream could still affect her the way this one was.

"What's that?" Riley asked, pointing with his pen at something hooked to the lace of the bra.

"I don't know," she said, turning the material in her hands until she could unhook the card caught in the fabric. "It's some kind of badge. We might have gotten lucky here." She flipped it over, staring at the picture on the front.

Riley heard her gasp and then saw her face go deathly pale. She dropped the card on the desk, shaking her head in denial as she backed away from it. Clasping her hands over her mouth, she turned and ran from the room. "Buffy? What's wrong?" he called, but she was gone. He turned back to the desk and the card that sat upon it. It was a work badge, a designated slot card for their hospital. There was a picture and some information on the card as well as a name. Riley looked at the picture, glancing at the name and then frowned. "Dr. Angel McKenna," he snarled. "I'll be damned."


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve:

Buffy felt the shudders wrack her body as it emptied itself of the coffee she'd drank tonight. She couldn't get over the sight of his face on that card tangled in the material of the victim's bra. She flushed the toilet, then sank down next to it, letting her head lean back against the tiled wall. Tears threatened, but she fought them back. She kept hearing his voice when he'd told her he thought he was falling for her.

He was falling for her ... and then running out and killing girls that looked like her. Her head fell forward, hitting her knees that she had drawn up against her body. She was shaking and she hated it.

"Here," Riley said, holding out a wet paper towel to her. She looked up at him, and he felt his heart break at the haunted look in her eyes. "Oh, Buffy. I'm sorry." He held out his arms and she went in to them. He could feel the shudders course through her petite frame as he smoothed his hands down over her back.

Buffy forced herself to move away from him after holding on to him for only a few moments. She took the paper towel he still held and used it to wipe off her face, then went over to the sink to splash some cold water on her burning cheeks.

"Are you okay?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah," she laughed cynically. "I have to be okay, don't I? I don't have much of a choice."

"Well, you could come back here and let me hold you again for a while." He touched her still wet face with gentle fingers. "I may not like the man, mostly because of jealousy, but I never would have wanted this."

"We have to bring him in," she said. She closed her eyes, again seeing the image of Angel lying against her sheets, his chest bare, his hair tousled from her hands. His brown eyes had been half closed, his fingers stroking down her arm as he told her to hurry back to him. He wanted to hold her as he slept, he'd said.

She had slept with him. She couldn't get the thought out of her head. She had slept with a killer. No, she hadn't slept with him. They hadn't had much of a chance to sleep. She'd fucked a killer and had enjoyed every moment of it.

"Yeah," Riley said, running his hand through her hair. "We have to bring him in. But you won't be there. I'll get someone else up and I will go do it with them. Do you have McKenna's address?"

"He's not at his place, Riley." She dropped her head down and felt him move forward until she was leaning her forehead up against his chest.

"He's at the hospital then?" he questioned, running his hands up and down her arms.

"No." She took a deep breath and looked up at him. "He's at my apartment."

He stared back down at her, his hands dropping from her arms. "You're off the case."

"No, God dammit, Riley..."

She shut up when he held his hand up in front of her face. "You slept with him, Buffy. You can't be on this case any longer, not if he's our prime suspect. Don't argue with me."

She cringed at the tone in his voice. It was cold and hard. She'd never heard him talk like that, not to her. He backed away from her, staring at her as if she was someone he didn't know. And it hurt her. It hurt badly. "There might be another explanation, Riley, did you think of that?" She knew she was reaching but she had to believe that she wouldn't have gone to bed with a murderer.

"Sure there is, Buffy. Somehow his hospital badge got into the same dumpster with our victim's clothing. It ended up getting tangled up in her bra, the inside of her bra at that. Of course, I can come up with any number of plausible explanations for that."

At that moment she hated him, hated him with every fiber of her being, and at the same time knew that he was right.

"I'm going to go bring him in. I'm going to ask you to step back and away, Buffy. I don't want to go to the chief with this."

"I'll step back, Ri but I'm going to be in the viewing room while you're doing the interview ... whether you like it or not." She reached into the pocket of the jacket she was still wearing and pulled out her keys, slipping her apartment key off the ring and handing it to him without being asked.

"Don't call him," he warned as he turned and left the women's bathroom.

"Asshole," she snarled as the door closed behind him. As if she would do something that would sabotage a case, especially a case where women were dying. She splashed more water on her face and then dried it off, going to wait at her desk while she went back over the files, searching them with a fine tooth comb, needing to come up with something that would prove that Angel hadn't done it.

* * *

Angel woke to a pounding at the door. It was barely morning, and the light coming in through the window was weak yet. He got up, grabbing his pants and pulling them on quickly as the door was slammed open. He heard feet rushing toward the bedroom and stepped back, confused. Police burst through the door, grabbing his arm and forcing him face down on the floor. "Angel McKenna?"

It was a familiar voice, and he looked up, seeing Riley Finn standing there. "You know who I am," he said. "You want to explain what this is about? Where's Buffy?"

"You are being taken in for questioning, Dr. As to where Buffy is, well, that's none of your concern." Riley felt a dark thrill, seeing the man who seemed to have such a strong hold on Buffy's interest on the floor in cuffs. It was wrong, the way it felt. But he couldn't help but revel in the feeling. Buffy could have been his, should have been his, and not this doctor's.

"What am I being questioned about?"

"You'll find out more at the station. Until that time, I am going to Mirandize you." Riley ran through the standard Miranda rights, emphasizing his right to silence as Angel almost seemed to snarl at him. He picked up the man's shirt, now wrinkled from falling on the floor, and draped it over Angel's shoulders as he was lifted to his feet and led out of the apartment.

A police car sat in the street outside the building and Angel was pushed into the back seat with a little more force than necessary.

The trip to the station was done in silence. He saw Riley's car pull into the underground parking garage behind them and then the man was there when the police car stopped and the door opened. Riley reached in, grabbing Angel's arm and pulling him from the cruiser. Angel was taken the back way into the building and then ensconced in one of the small, dingy interview rooms, with a uniformed officer as a guard.

Riley unlocked his cuffs. "Can I get you some coffee, doctor?" he asked sarcastically.

"You can tell me what this is all about."

"Not yet, sir," Riley said, stretching the respectfulness until it was disrespectful. He went to the door of the interview room, turning once to glance over his shoulder. "It's hard for me to believe you aren't the man I thought you were when we met in the hospital. I used to be such a good judge of character but this job can screw with you so much." He shook his head sadly before going through the door and locking it from the outside.

Buffy was sitting at her desk when he came back in the bullpen. The file was open, the pictures spread out, including the new ones that Park had just delivered himself. He watched her for a moment as she stared at the pictures, brushing her hair out of her eyes every once in a while. With a sigh, and a desperate need for coffee, he turned and went to where a new pot was brewing, blessing the powers that be for hot fresh caffeine.

"Did you get him?"

"Yeah, he was still in your apartment." He couldn't help the slight hurt that managed to infuse that sentence. He was hurt, even though it wasn't her fault. And he knew he had no right to be. She was his partner, not his wife or his lover. He looked around the bullpen, seeing nothing but empty chairs. They were alone.

With a sigh, he put his coffee on her desk and crouched down next to her, pulling her chair out slightly so he could look into her face. "Are you okay?" he asked, letting his hands run up and down her arms. He'd been mad, and he wouldn't hide it. But she looked so vulnerable sitting there, faint vestiges of her tears still apparent if you knew what to look for.

"I'll be better when we get this whole mess straightened out and I can get back on this case. He didn't do this, he couldn't have. It's so against what he believes in, so against his nature. I mean, think about it, when he hit Adam Walsh, he'd seemed sort of shell shocked afterwards, as if the violence was abhorrent to him. How could he go out and slice and dice three girls like this when one punch had upset him so much?"

Riley's head dropped until his forehead was against her knee. He sighed heavily. "I hope if I ever get into any trouble, you're around to bail me out with as much loyalty as you're showing him." He raised his head, staring into her troubled green eyes. "I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, but I just can't figure out any other way that his hospital badge got tangled up in Darla Holtz's bra."

"I've been thinking about that and I have an idea. You said you think this killer is fixated on me. He's killing women that look sort of like me, right?" She didn't wait for him to answer. "So, if he is fixated, then he must know that I'm dating Angel. So he sneaks into the hospital and takes the badge and then leaves it with the clothing, knowing that we'll find it."

He stared down at her in disbelief. "Do you really think he'd go that far? I mean, the chances of being caught are pretty high."

"So are the chances of being caught while raping and killing someone, but he takes those chances. If he is truly fixated upon me, then that is one scenario. I can probably think of others if I have a chance."

Riley stood, putting his hand on her shoulder for a moment. "I need the file. And the hospital badge. The chief is going to do the interview with me. He's given you permission to watch but you can't interrupt. He wants your word on that."

"He has it." She quickly stacked the photos and slid them into their manila envelopes.

* * *

"Chief?" Riley called.

He looked up from the huge piles of papers that were covering his desk. "Any problems?" he asked, standing up and pulling his jacket off the back of his chair. He slipped it on and then picked up his own cooling cup of coffee.

"No, he came pretty easily. He's been Mirandized and left to stew."

"Well, let's not let him stew so long that he starts yelling for an attorney. I'd like to get a confession out of him before the sharks can circle."

"Chief, Buffy came up with another theory that might hold some value."

"Well, tell me now before we get in there." He stopped, turning to face Riley. "But remember, if she's been dating this guy she's got an emotional stake in this." He crossed his arms over his chest.

Riley nodded and explained the idea, adding his own two cents. "It might be something worth a thought sir ... if the killer is really fixated on her, he's going to also fixate on anyone who she's involved with."

"Well, let's hope that isn't the case here. I've got the public on my back and an FBI profiler on his way. He'll be here tomorrow to do a complete profile on our killer and to help with anything he can."

"What?" Riley's mouth dropped open. "Hold it, Chief. You called the FBI in on this? You know what'll happen, we'll do all the work and they'll get the glory." He felt rage building and struggled to push it back down.

"So let's go in there and get a confession and I can call and have them turn the plane around."

They met up with Buffy, who was standing outside the viewing room. She was pale but composed, unwilling to show any emotion.

"Are you sure you want to put yourself through this? It's not neces..."

"It is for me. I have to know if he's lying, Chief. I have to." A shuddering sigh came from deep inside of her and she looked from one man to the other. "I can't think that my judgment is so bad that I wouldn't know if something was wrong. He got to my place last night at just a little past seven p.m. If he had committed Darla's murder, he'd have had to move pretty fast from the time he left the hospital to when he arrived at my apartment.

"Your apartment is where?"

"The other side of the park, chief. I'm not saying it's not possible, I'm saying it's highly unlikely. We won't know for sure until the prelims come from the coroner, giving us time of death."

"Okay," he said, staring through the darkened glass and into the interrogation room where Angel waited. "Let's get this started, and as soon as you get the prelims, you get them to us. But under no condition are you to walk into that room, do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," she said, turning toward the viewing room and dreading what she was going to see. She walked through the door, her eyes immediately going to the huge two way mirror that took up most of the space on the one wall. Flipping on the switches that would start the video recording devices working, she hit the intercom switch on the wall, so she could hear what was being said.

Then she looked at Angel.

They'd taken off the cuffs and he'd slid his shirt onto his shoulders, buttoning it halfway. His chest could be seen through the material, a chest she'd kissed and caressed with such pleasure and passion not four hours before. His head was down in his hands, and as she watched, he glanced up, looking not at the door but at the mirror.

It was as if he could see her, his eyes boring into the spot where she was rooted to the floor. She could see exhaustion in that gaze, and unease. Frustration seemed to spill from his pores. But mostly what she saw was the hurt.

She felt behind her for the table and chairs that she knew were there and sat, her eyes never leaving his until his head swiveled and he stood up.

"Sit down, Dr. McKenna," she heard Riley's voice say before she actually saw him.

Angel sat. "What's going on here, Detective?" he asked, his voice just barely tinged with annoyance.

Riley sat down, his back to Buffy. In his hand he held the file folder full of everything they had on the three murders. He placed it on the table but kept his hands over the top of it. The chief took a chair and pulled it away from the table, separating himself but staying close.

Riley sat there for a moment, not saying anything, just staring at Angel. Finally, after what seemed like forever, he spoke. "Where's your hospital name badge, Dr. McKenna?"

"What?" Angel seemed confused for a moment. "My name badge? What does that have to do with anything?"

"Just answer the question, Doctor." Riley sat forward in his chair.

"I noticed it was missing when I left work yesterday. It was clipped to my lab coat but when I went to leave, it was gone." He stared form one of the men to the other, trying to guess what was in their heads.

"Did you report it missing to anyone? Head of security? Your supervisor down in the Emergency Room? Anyone?" Riley asked, his head tipped, his tone mild.

"No, I told you, I noticed it when I was leaving. I had an appointment after I got out of work and wanted to go home. I was planning on doing that when I came into work today if no one had turned it in."

"That's not really responsible, Doctor, is it? I mean, isn't that how you get around the hospital? Don't you have to use it to get into employee parking?"

"Doctors have special parking, closer to the hospital than the employee parking. I use though spaces. But yes, it is how I get around. And as I said, I was planning on stopping at security today when I went in to see if anyone found it, and to request a new one if not. I'm not the first one to misplace a badge, Detective. Is this all you want, to ask me about a lost hospital badge?" He pushed up from the chair. "If that's all you want to talk about, then I'm out of here."

"Sit down, Doctor. I'm not through with you yet," Riley said, his voice calm and toneless. He waited until the doctor sat before shuffling through some papers in his file, reading and then looking back at the man who sat across from him in the dingy room. "What time did you get off work yesterday?"

"I signed out at 5:10."

"And then what did you do, Doctor?" Riley sat forward in his chair more, lifting himself up jut a little.

"I had an appointment." Angel sat forward also, lifting in the chair.

"With?" Rileyasked, his voice hard as he stood and leaned against the desk.

"A friend," Angel snarled, standing also, his face about a foot from Riley's.

"What friend?" Riley asked.

"That is none of your business," Angel said, his teeth grinding.

"You'd better make it my business, Doctor." Riley growled, slamming his hand down on the table in front of him.

"That's enough!" Chief Rayne stood, slamming his own fist on the table. "Doctor McKenna, sit down please. Detective, I'd like to speak to you outside."

Riley picked up his file and took a deep breath, walking out of the room, Ethan following him.

Buffy watched Angel as he sat alone in the room. His eyes were wild, the warm chocolate color turned cold and dark. He pushed his hand through his hair and took a deep breath letting it out slowly. Then he got up and walked around the room, pacing back and forth before finally walking towards the mirror. He stood, his hand against the glass. She stared at him for a moment, her mind a whirl. She couldn't be wrong about him, could she? How could the man who'd made love to her so wonderfully be the same man who'd raped and beaten those women so horribly? He couldn't. She couldn't, no, she wouldn't believe that he would do that. With a sigh she stood and leaned against the window, letting her hand rest against the glass where his was. She knew he couldn't see her, or feel her skin, but she hoped he knew she was here. "I believe in you, Angel," she whispered.

The door to the interrogation room opened once more and he turned, staring at the two men who walked back in.

"Please sit down, Doctor," Riley said, his voice once more calm. "Let's try this again, please." Riley sat in the chair he'd been in before, but he pulled it back just a little. "This would go better for you if you'd cooperate with us."

"If you'll explain why I'm here, I might be more obliged to cooperate." ANgel shrugged his shoulders and crossed his arms over his chest, his expression stony.

"You said you lost your badge at work, am I right?"

"That's what I said because that's what happened. I had a long day; a lot of accidents and one attempted suicide that was touch and go for a few hours. It could have fallen off my lapel or been pulled off. I don't know where it went." He shrugged his wide shoulders.

"And where did you go after work?"

"I had an appointment, just as I said before. What is this all about?"

Riley reached into his file, pulling out three crime scene photos that showed each of the victims' faces. Their eyes were wide open and staring, horrified. He laid them out on the table between them one at a time. "Do you know any of these women, Doctor?" he asked, pushing them towards Angel.

Angel swallowed and closed his eyes for an instant before opening them and staring at the pictures, one at a time. "No," he said finally, pushing them back toward Riley. "I've never seen any of those women. Who are they?"

Riley tapped the first photo. "This is Cassandra Newton, she just turned 18. She was found murdered just three days ago." He tapped the second photo. "Jane Doe, we haven't been able to identify her yet. She was found murdered just two nights ago. And this last one. This is Darla Holtz, her body was found in the park last night. Raped, tortured and sliced up, all three of them."

Angel looked up, staring at Riley for a moment. "This is the case that you and Buffyare working on, the case she had to leave to go to last night. And she's not in here with you," he said slowly. "She's not in here with you because you think that I killed these women."

"Where were you yesterday after you got off of work at the hospital, Doctor?" Riley asked again, refusing to give credit to his musings. "Where did you go from the time you were off of work until the time you showed up at Buffy's apartment?"

"The only thing I don't know is what evidence you could possibly have that puts me at the scenes of the crimes." Angel said as if he hadn't heard the questions. He turned and stared at the chief. "My hospital badge, someone swiped it and planted it at the scene, didn't they? Where was it, under the body?"

"Doctor, where did you go tonight after you got out of work?" Riley asked again, standing slightly and coming between the other man and him, bringing him back into the center of Angel's attention.

"I got gas, went home and took a shower and then went to my appointment. Where's Buffy? I want to see her." Angel turned and looked at the glass. "Is she behind there? Is she?" he asked turning to look at Riley.

"Buffy doesn't want to see you," Riley said with great relish. "She's been taken off this case for the time being. You're dealing with me now."

Ethan cleared his throat and Riley sat back a little in his chair. "Now, tell me again, when did you notice that your badge was missing?" he asked, leaving the crime scene pictures lying on the table.

Buffy watched as Riley took him through his story over and over again, trying to break any part of it. And with every mention of her name, she got madder and madder. He was deliberately rubbing her in to ANgel's face, deliberately flaunting the fact that she'd been replaced. It was all she could do not to run into that room and slam her fist into Jher partner's face.

"Your hospital badge was found tangled in the victim's clothes, Doctor! You want me to believe that someone sneaked into the hospital, found you in the warren of corridors there, and swiped your badge off your chest while you weren't looking, just to plant it in those clothes to implicate you?" He laughed. "That's pretty far fetched. I think you can come up with a better excuse. We've fingerprinted the badge. There's only one set of prints on it, and that, I'm sure, will belong to you. So let's try this again, where did you go last night after you left work?"

Finally, Angel had had enough. He turned to Chief Rayne. "Am I under arrest?"

"No," Ethan answered slowly. "Not yet. We are still checking out facts."

"Then I'm out of here." Angel stood, pushing back his chair so hard it fell over. He walked to the door of the interrogation room and opened it, feeling their eyes on his back. And all the time he waited for one of them to stop him. When that didn't happen, he walked out of the building.

* * *

Buffy was waiting for Rileywhen he came out of the interrogation room. "May I speak to you for a minute?" she asked, her voice low.

"Go home, Buf," he said. "You can't work this case now, Chief is replacing you here. You might as well go home and get some sleep, come back later in the day and put some time in on the other cases we got pending." He watched Ethan's back as the man walked away, leaving them alone in the hallway which were scarcely inhabited at this time of the early morning.

Buffywatched him also, waiting until he turned the corner as he headed back toward his office. Then she plowed her fist into Riley's belly, hearing his oof of pain as the air was driven from his lungs. "Don't you ever use me like that again, Riley Finn, ever. You purposefully rubbed me into his face." She turned and started to walk away when she felt his hand on her arm, grabbing hard and dragging her into the viewing room she'd just walked out of. Pushing her against the wall, he dropped the file onto the table and turned to face her.

"I will do what I have to, when I have to do it, Summers. Not you or anyone else will tell me differently." He felt rage burning in his gut, boiling almost out of control. "I'm not the one out there fucking around with a killer. Was he any good? Tell me, does he kiss better than me? I mean, just yesterday you were all over me. What, wasn't I good enough for you? Does a man have to kill to get your attention?"

"You're a sorry bastard, Riley," Buffy said, contempt in her voice. She turned to leave, only to find herself slammed back against the wall, his hand around her throat.

"Don't ever call me that, ever," he snarled into her face.

Buffy felt her breath cut off and her hands went to his wrist, tugging at it. "Let me go," she gasped. "Riley, let me go."

It was like watching him wake up. He seemed shocked to see his hand at her throat, the skin welting around his grasping fingers. With an oath, he stepped back, seeing the fingerprints on her throat.

"You make me so fucking crazy, Buffy. You drive me nuts. Some days I want to love you forever and then others..." he let the sentence hang as he ran his now shaking hands through his thick blonde hair. "He's a killer," he said, turning and taking her arms, his hands gentle with her now. "He's got the blood of three innocent girls on his hands. At least, there are three that we know of right now. And you still want him, don't you?"

Buffy gently rubbed the bruises that were quickly forming on her throat. For the first time she could remember, in all the time she had known Riley, she was afraid of him. That fear must have shone in her eyes because he tried to draw her close, to hug her to him, stopping only when she shied away from him, knocking his hands off her arms. "Don't you fucking touch me," she said, her voice hoarse. She turned quickly, her hand finding the door knob and twisting at it before feeling it give.

Then she was walking quickly down toward the bullpen, grabbing her stuff and hurrying towards the stairs. She didn't want to see him again, not right now, not when she was feeling something completely alien for her. Fear, like what she'd felt during her dream of being stalked. It was horrid and sickening, twisting in her stomach until she felt as if she'd throw up again if there'd been anything there to vomit.

The stairwell was quiet, no one around at this early hour, and shift change wasn't for another hour yet. She raced down the stairs, hearing her feet echo against the cement steps. Every noise seemed magnified and eerie, her panting breaths unnaturally loud as she pushed out the heavy door that led into the parking garage.

Here too it was deserted. Her car was parked in its assigned slot in the badly lit lot, and she ran to it, staring around her wildly, wondering if Riley would come after her.

She was unlocking the door to her Mustang when the hand came down on her arm. With a shrill squeak, she grabbed the wrist, fighting with the man who tried to pull her into his arms. She managed to push him against her car, twisting his arm behind him. but she wouldn't be able to hold him long. And she had no idea what would happen when his strength overcame hers.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen:

"Buffy, dammit, it's me."

Angel, she thought as relief flowed through her. She'd thought it would be Riley, she thought she'd have to have another go around with him here in the parking garage. She let go of his arm, waiting until he turned around and then threw herself into his arms. "God, Angel, I am so sorry."

He closed his eyes, the wonderful weight of her in his arms making him almost weak with relief. His head tipped forward and he breathed in the sweet scent of her hair, the faint trace of the perfume she'd worn last night and under that, the spicy aroma of warm, sweet. Her body against him felt right, almost as if she'd been split off of him somehow and now that they were together, they were complete. "You know I didn't kill those girls. You know that don't you?" He lifted his head, looking down into her tear filled eyes.

Buffy stared into his eyes, looking deep. She saw warmth and love, caring and worry, passion. But she didn't see death. She nodded slowly. "No, you couldn't have killed them. I know you couldn't have done it."

His arms tightened around her, drawing her back against him. Relief flooded through him, relief that the woman he loved believed in him, that she trusted him. "Thank you," he whispered.

She let him hold her, for both their sakes, soaking up the way he felt against her, memorizing his scent, the curve of his body against hers. His heart beat against her ear, the sound reassuring and strong. Her eyes closed and a single tear slipped down the curve of her cheek.

She pushed away, not relenting when he tried to draw her back into his arms. "I believe in you Angel, but there will be a lot of people who don't and won't. A lot of people are going to look at you and believe what they see, that you killed those women with your hospital badge being the proof of your guilt. But I'm not one of them, okay?" She reached up, touching his stubbled cheek with gentle fingers.

He closed his eyes, letting his head rest against her hand, turning his face to press a kiss into her palm. "All I needed to know was that you believe in me. I'll deal with everyone else when I have to."

There was a tone in his voice, a note that told her he expected her to walk away. Her eyes closed for a moment, but when she opened them, her decision was made and her heart was clear. "We'll deal with them, Angel. I'm not going to walk away from you."

"But what about your job? What about Finn? Won't he have something to say about this?" He settled back, leaning against her Mustang and pulling her closer so she tilted against his body.

"I'll deal with it when I have to," she said, unconsciously mimicking his words. "There are other jobs and other ways of life. I'll be fine." She stood straight, reaching up and letting her lips touch his and linger. She felt his lips curve against hers and looked up at him. "What?"

"You love me."

She tipped her head to the side, staring at him as if he were crazy. "You're nuts," she said. "You know that? Nuts."

"No, I'm not. You love me. You're ready to drop everything, to go against your partner, to go against the job that you hold so sacred that you'd die for it, for me. That's got to be love, Buffy." His smile grew as he stared down at the look of consternation on her face.

"This isn't the time or place to be talking about this. We have to get you out of here."

"And you're afraid of it too, aren't you?" His smile was wide, love shone in the warmth of his chocolate brown eyes. "That's just ... cute."

"Cute?" She looked at him as if he'd completely lost his mind, especially when he started chuckling. "You think I'm cute? I'm not cute." She pulled away from him, opening her car door and unlocking his side. "I'm a lot of things, but cute isn't one of them. And this isn't the time or the place for this conversation. Get in, we'll go back to my place. We've got some stuff to figure out."

He slid onto the leather seats of the Mustang, admiring the high tech, sleekly styled interior of the car. "Yeah, like who is trying to set me up."

"That's a start. Once we figure out who's setting you up, then we can figure out who's killing these girls." She started the car, putting it into reverse and backed slowly out of her spot.

That's when she saw him. Riley, standing in the pool of light from one of the overheads. He watched her back out, his head up, his eyes gleaming like ice so cold it shone pale blue. His hands were in fists and she knew he'd heard what she'd said to Angel. "Shit," she said, under her breath. Putting the car in gear, she headed towards the ramp that led to the weak watery light of outside.

"What?" Angel said, looking up and around. "What's wrong?"

"Riley," she said, nodding with her head to where he stood, the light creating a halo affect in his hair.

"He's not going to be happy to see you with me."

"That's the understatement of the year," she said, cursing again as he stepped out of the light as if he were going to stop her from leaving. She sped up slightly and he ended up slapping his hand angrily on the back spoiler of her car.

Looking in her rear view mirror, she could see him standing behind her, glaring at her with an expression upon his face that she couldn't, or maybe it was didn't dare, decipher.

* * *

They drove the few miles to Buffy's apartment, hurrying inside before anyone could see them together. It didn't matter how quiet the department tried to keep it, leaks happened. She had no doubt that Angel being questioned in accordance to the three murders would make front page news. And right after that would be the fact that he was dating the ex lead investigator in the case.

She unplugged her phone, leaving only her cell phone on. The department would call her on that if they needed her. But then, again, so would Riley. She stared at the phone, her finger brushing the off button. Duty won over the instinct she felt to hide, to be alone with Angel for a while, and she left it on.

Dropping her jacket on the back of a chair, she stood, peeling off her shoulder rig and watched as he walked around her apartment, before collapsing on her couch, his face falling in his hands, his shoulders tightening.

Angel sat there for a moment, numb, his brain blank. He felt like he did after the long hours and days he'd put in as a resident, his body moving because it was trained to move until it finally shut down and demanded he do what was best for , though, he knew he was in shock. He felt her presence before he felt her touch, turning his head up to face her and dropping his hands to his lap.

Buffy hated to see him looking like this, defeated seemed the only way to describe his mood. She knelt in front of him, resting her hand on top of his just to feel him close to her. A small smile touched his lips and he turned his hand over, entwining their fingers. "We can work this out. We just have to stay focused and not get discouraged."

"Those women he killed," Angel said slowly, looking into her beautiful green eyes, "they all looked sort of like you. Not exactly, but there were resemblances. Is he after you?"

How to answer that question? "He might be. I don't know. If my guess is right, than yes, he is fixated on me which is why he's framing you for the murders. He saw us together, maybe at the first crime scene and decided to make you his patsy."

"You need protection," he said, reaching out and pulling her forward until she sat in his lap once more. "Is Finn sending an unmarked car or whatever it is you people do to protect victims in danger?"

"Oh God, don't you go all macho and protective male on me now too. I'm a cop, Angel. I've been protecting myself for a long time." She sighed and shifted on his lap, feeling more tired that she'd felt in a long time. "I've told Riley no unmarked or undercovers. I'll just lose them if he tries it to force them on me."

"I can't believe I'm going to say this ... I think Riley is right. If this killer can go into a hospital with all its personnel and security and steal a doctor's badge off of his lab coat, he can get to you no matter what your experience. You need official protection, or to go into a safe house of whatever you cops do." He lifted her face with a gentle finger under her chin and kissed her softly, staring down at her.

Before she could answer, she saw his face change, grow hard, his eyes darkened. And she knew he'd seen the marks on her neck, marks made by Riley's hand. She jerked her head away but he grabbed her chin in his hand and lifted it, his other hand stroking over the bruises on her skin.

"Who did this to you?" he snarled. "Who marked you? You didn't have these last night." His tone was rough but his fingers were incredibly gentle as they traced the marks, marks made by fingers.

"It doesn't matter, it was a misunderstanding and it's taken care of. I'm fine, so let's just let it rest." She pulled away and pushed up and off of him, pacing the short confines of her living room.

"It was Riley, wasn't it? He went after you after he found out about us, didn't he?" His eyes searched her face, seeing the answer in her eyes before she could drop them. "I'll kill the son of a bitch," he growled, pushing off the couch with rage growing in his stomach. "He had no right to touch you, no right at all."

"It's all right, dammit. They don't hurt. I'm fine. I handled it like I handle everything when it comes to him." She walked over to him and pushed him back on the couch with one hand on his chest. He was stiff, his hands fisted. "I'm fine," she repeated, seeing his eyes light upon the bruises.

"He hurt you. He put his hands on you."

"And I dealt with him and with his hands. Angel, he won't do it again. He's not like this. He's usually a very decent guy when it comes to me. Besides, I get hit harder than this at least once a week. Are you going to go nuts every time I come home with a bruise?" He wasn't buying it. She could almost see the gears spinning in his mind and knew he was thinking of what he was going to do the next time he had Riley in his face. She wanted to scream and pull out her hair. "Listen to me, dammit," she snarled in his face. "You are in way too much trouble right now as it is. You can't go after him. They'll throw your ass in jail if you try anything right now. Don't you know how bad that will look? You'll look guilty as hell."

He stared up at her, seeing the worry and the weariness on her face. It broke apart his fury like a sledge hammer, seeing her look so incredibly tired. He sighed, feeling his own exhaustion like a thick fog, weighing him down. "Okay, fine. I won't go after him now." He took her in his arms, his hands gentle against her sensitive skin. "But one of these days, when this is all over with, your partner and I are going to have a talk about him putting his hands on you."

Buffy reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck. "How long before you have to go into the hospital?"

"Why?" A small smirk curved his mouth. "Are you getting ideas about seducing me or something? Cause you know, I'm pretty unseducable."

"Oh, I think I'm up to the task," she said, pulling open the shirt that he'd barely buttoned. She kissed his throat, smelling his now familiar scent, stepping in so her breasts pressed against him as she pushed his shirt off his shoulders. "But, I was thinking actually of something else. When I left last night, you mentioned something about holding me in your arms while we slept."

"And then waking up to make love to you while your body is all sleepy and warm," he said tipping his head to give her more access to his neck. He opened his eyes, glancing across the room to where a small Teddy Bear shaped clock sat amidst the chaos. "I guess, since you are being so convincing, I can give you a couple of hours."

"You ain't seen nothin' yet, Doc," she said, making him laugh.

He stood, pulling her with him, and then lifted her in his arms and started down the hallway.

"You know," she said, wrapping her arms around his neck, "I could get real used to this."

In the bedroom, he let her legs down, holding her against him still with one arm around her waist. "I want to get used to it." His lips found hers, softly, full of emotions and caring too many to name. He felt danger, for her or for him, he didn't know which. Right now though, they had this small amount of time, like the eye of a hurricane where all is quiet and calm. He needed her to know how he felt about her, now, before it was too late and the storm winds gathered once more, blowing through their lives and destroying everything.

A sense of urgency, of impending danger, swept through him. He tore his mouth from hers, gasping as he stared down at her. "I don't know what's going to happen or if things are going to go completely to shit. I have to tell you..."

"Shh," she whispered, stopping him from saying the words she knew he wanted to say. It wasn't that she didn't want to hear them. She just didn't want to hear them now, not when their lives were so uncertain. "Tell me later, when this thing is done. But for now, make love to me, that's all."

He pulled her shirt off of her, staring at her heaving breasts lightly confined in red silk and lace. The dark color of her nipples could be seen through the lace, taut and pushing at the clinging fabric.

"Like what you see?" she asked him as he didn't move, just stared at the pale mounds of flesh. She pushed them together with her hands, cupping them and stroking her nipples through the lacy fabric. "Don't you want to touch them, touch me? Don't you want to kiss and lick my nipples?"

Like a man possessed, he reached behind her, yanking at the hooks until they parted. The bra was torn from her and thrown behind his back, landing on the small ceiling fan that was spinning lazily above them. Buffy's chuckle rang out, smoky and husky, catching as he bent down and took her nipple into his mouth. Her laugh turned to a moan of need as he sucked it into his mouth, laving the taut tip and suckling upon it until her knees began to give out. He laughed in triumph as she clung to his shoulders, little gasping whimpers of pleasure mixed with desire so urgent, she clawed at his back. He rose, picking her up once more and dumping her on the bed, his brown eyes gone almost black with the own desperate needs that burned through him. She bounced once before he was on her, his lips tracing the welts upon her throat, his teeth nipping at the skin over her collarbone.

Her breasts got his attention again, licking and nibbling his way from one taut peak to the other feeling her hands holding his head against her flesh as he sucked as much of the firm mounds into his mouth as he could.

He pulled away from her, yanking at the belt at her waist until it pulled free. Opening her jeans, he pushed his hand inside, slipping it under the lacy silk he could feel and finding her, the heat of her, wet and pulsing with need. Her clit was distended from its tiny hood, a hard kernel of need under his finger. He circled it, stroked over it, before plunging his finger inside of her wet opening.

She could barely breathe. Her head spun as more sensations were heaped upon her overloaded nerve endings. She could sense the pleasure coming, even as her muscles tightened. Tiny white lights exploded behind her closed eyelids and her body bowed as her back arched, trying to get closer to the source of her pleasure. When it finally came, it was intense, incredible ecstasy that ranged from between her thighs, crashing over her body like a tidal wave of heat that had her muscles shaking. H

e watched as she cried out his name, a dark smile of desire upon his handsome face. Her body quivered and for just a moment, he stopped the movement of his hand, watching her face intently.

When she relaxed against him, soft and warm, limp and satiated, his hand moved again, pulling her jeans from her body. The red silk she wore under them was drawn off of her limp form also, leaving her naked in his arms.

Angel stared down at her, wanting to tear off his own clothes and plunge deep between her thighs, lose himself in the hot moist flesh of her cunt. Her body was beautiful, sleek and sexy, taut muscle and curvy female mixed. Softly, though his body cried out to just take her, he slid his hand over her shoulder and her breasts, across the flat surface of her stomach before slipping once more between her thighs. She jerked slightly, her eyes opening to stare up at him with sleepy surprise.

"I'm not done with you, yet," he whispered, his face tight with his own passion still unfulfilled.

Buffy moaned, her body stirring as his fingers pushed inside of her, his thumb circling around her clit once more. Passion she thought extinguished, rose once more, forcing her hips to move in time with his thrusts. She reached up, pushing his shirt off of his shoulders and down his arms, forcing him to move his hand that was causing her to ache with need once more. "Let me," she said, pushing him back, her lips coursing over his chest, her nails scratching over his skin, flicking over his flat, male nipples until they stood for her. She suckled on one, hearing his groan and feeling his hands slide down over the arch of her back, cupping her bottom and the slender columns of her thighs.

"Take off my pants," he ordered her, feeling the fumbling of her fingers on the fastening and then the long slide of the zipper. His cock rose free from the material, brushing against her hand. The tip was wet with his own eagerness.

A gasp and then a moan erupted from him as she stroked his hard shaft before sliding her lips down him, tasting the musky tang of his desire. His hands tangled in her hair, his body as taut as hers had been when she finally took him in her mouth, her lips stretched around his cock.

Angel's head fell back against the pillow as he felt her soft tongue exploring and slipping around his shaft that was buried in the hot, wet depths of her mouth. Her hand slipped under, cupping his balls and squeezing them gently. He took it as long as he could, feeling every stroke of her mouth drawing him closer and closer. Finally, he drew her up, the cool air of the room swirling around his wet cock, making him long for the warmth of her mouth. "You're too much," he whispered, pushing her down under him and finding his way between her open thighs.

"Fuck me," she moaned as the head of his shaft penetrated her body. It stretched her delicate flesh, pushing into her warmth easily. Her legs came up and around his hips, her arms grabbing the firm, muscled arms that were holding his weight off of her body as he looked down the length of her. He watched as she took him, his cock disappearing inside of her until he could go no further, their bodies joined. He pulled out just as slowly, seeing her juices shimmer on his cock. Her hips flexed, drawing him back into her, demanding that he give her the pleasure she knew he was capable of. Buffy's hands went onto his back, sliding down to his waist, pulling him down to her. "I want to feel you. God, Angel, I have to feel your weight on me."

He was as if putty in her hands, moving over her, feeling her nails score down his back leaving tiny trails of fire that just pushed his desire higher. He let her pull him closer, feeling the firmness of her soft breasts pressing against his chest, the taut buds of her nipples pushing against him. Her movements under him became less controlled as she lost herself in the way he felt, the hard girth of him inside of her, the heat of his skin against her own.

Angel's hands cupped her hips, holding her still for his thrusts, forcing her to feel even when the sensations threatened to overwhelm her. He heard his name from her lips as she crested wave after wave of passion, pleasure becoming a sharp edged ecstasy that had her gripping him with her arms and legs as she shook and shuddered beneath him.

He waited, riding out her climax with gritted teeth until she relaxed beneath him.

"Angel," she sighed, opening her eyes to see his taut features and eyes gone hard with desire. He looked half wild, uncontrollable in the dim light that came through her curtains. "You didn't..." she let the sentence trail off as his hands traced her features, stroked over her jaw and down to her throat. A thrill of fear shot through her as his hand wrapped around her slender neck.

"Not yet," he ground out. He held her down with his hand at her throat, the other hand holding himself above her, his hips moving slowly as he teased her still sensitive clit by brushing against it on every stroke.

Buffy felt fear but also renewed passion as desire and pleasure twisted in her middle. Her hands came to his wrist, grabbing and trying to pull it away from her neck even as her hips moved in time with his, rising and falling, pushing to grind her cunt against him.

* * *

He watched as they ran into the apartment building, his teeth gnashing and gritting in his fury. That fucking doctor should be in jail right now, not back in her apartment, back in her bed fucking his woman.

She was his, though she was having troubles admitting it. But she would, and soon.

Going to his car, he took one last look up at the window that he knew was her bedroom. The silhouette of the doctor's head could be seen through the gauzy sheer curtains that covered the thin glass panes. It made him want to draw the gun he had concealed in his car and fire it, getting rid of his rival once and forever. But before he could, the silhouette disappeared.

He got in his car and picked up the file folder he kept in the back seat. A sheaf of papers, each one with a woman's picture and information on it was in the manila file folder. With a smile, he looked through the pictures, stopping occasionally to stroke his hand over a face or lift the picture to his mouth for a kiss.

"There you are," he said finally, drawing a picture out of all the others and staring at it.

The girl on the picture was beautiful. She had high cheekbones, thick lashes and a lush mouth that he couldn't wait to taste. She was waiting for him, he knew, for he'd stalked her and found out her routine.

He carefully put the rest of the pictures back in their file, closing it and setting it back in the back seat before starting his car and pulling out into the traffic that was getting steadily heavier. If he timed it right, he should be able to find her as she was heading on her way to work.

* * *

Nina Ash kissed her husband as they parted ways in the driveway; each in their own car for their work took them in different directions. Nina worked in the northern part of the city as a real estate agent with a high profile office. She was good at her work, took pride in her appearance and the appearance of her home and family which showed in the well taken care of lawn and flower beds that lined the house and driveway and also in the high powered red business suit with the slim pencil skirt that she wore with confidence.

And she was about to die.

She backed out of her spot in the driveway, beeped and waved once more at her husband before putting the car into drive and heading to work. Today was going to be a busy day, three showings and two meetings, plus going over the promotions on a new house they'd just acquired to sell. Nina smiled. It was the kind of day she enjoyed, busy and energizing.

About three blocks from her home, she heard the siren behind her and glanced in her rear view mirror. A car was behind her, a bubble light in the front window. He motioned her over and she obeyed with a sigh.

Rolling down her window, she waited until the police man was close to her door.

"Yes, officer? I don't think I was speeding," she said, smiling a polite smile.

She was perfect, he thought. Just as he had hoped, she was so sweet and polite, with that just so slightly uncertain smile. He couldn't wait to taste her. "License and registration, ma'am," he said, acting the part he was playing to a tee.

Nina dug out her license and handed him that and her registration. She watched as he looked both documents over and then looked at her.

"I'm going to need you to get out of the car, Ms. Ash." He stepped back to make room for her to open the door.

Nina took the keys out of the ignition and then climbed out of the car, leaving the window open but closing her car door. She felt his long fingers close around her upper arm, pulling her around to the passenger seat of his car. Before she could get in, he pushed her down against the hood of the car, grabbing her wrists and cuffing them quickly.

"What are you doing?" Panic surfaced as she realized how completely vulnerable she was with her hands secured.

"In an unmarked car you are not allowed in unless cuffed, Ms. Ash. It's for both of our protection." He opened the door and shoved her inside the passenger seat before slamming the door closed and hurrying around to his own side. He had problems wiping the smile off of his face as he looked at her, trussed and unable to fight against him though she would be little more than a brief struggle.

* * *

Angel heard Buffy and lifted his head, slowing his thrusts as he watched her face.

"Angel, what are you doing?" she asked him again.

His hand lifted from her throat, and he leaned down, kissing her lips with a gentleness that brought tears to her eyes. "It was seeing his hand prints on your throat, Buffy, it was driving me crazy. I was just covering them. I'm sorry." He kissed her again, this time long and slow, his tongue stroking over her teeth, sinking into her mouth to taste the flavor of her passion, the sweetness that was this perfect woman. "I didn't mean to scare you," he said when he lifted his mouth from hers.

Buffy brought her knees up to his hips, her hands sliding down his back to cup his slowly thrusting butt. She could feel his muscles working under his skin and she squeezed the firm flesh her fingers slipping between to tease between his thighs and over his ass. She found the puckered flesh of his anus and pushed just the tip on her finger inside, feeling him jerk forward in surprise. "I didn't mean to scare you," she said, her voice low and husky. She pushed in a little further. "I'm sorry, baby."

He laughed, leaning down to nip at her earlobe with his teeth. "You can scare me like that anytime, love." He groaned as she did again, his thrusts becoming uncontrollable as his orgasm loomed closer.

Buffy reached down between her thighs, her fingers finding her stiff pebbled clit and rolling it almost desperately. She felt his thighs tense under hers, felt his body jerk and thrummed it harder, wanting urgently to come with him.

Angel felt her inner walls contract around his cock, the hot juices of her spendings washing over him and erupted within her, jerking against her as he bathed her cervix with a pearly layer of come. "Buffy," he growled, letting his body relax against hers as he came down from the peak.

* * *

He looked down at the girl beneath him, her red suit now in shreds around her nude form, her body bruised and welted from his big hands. She'd fought, struggled hard against him but had been no match for his strength. It had almost been too easy.

Pulling his spent cock from her body, he admired the way his come oozed from between her battered thighs mixed with sticky red from where he'd torn her with his roughness. His handprint was around her throat, standing out in bold relief from the pale skin. But she wasn't dead. He didn't want her dead yet. She was going to serve a purpose. She was going to help rid him of his rival for Buffy Summers' affection. She was going to help him kill Angel McKenna.

Running a hand over her breasts, he was disappointed in their size, hoping that they would have been fuller, the nipples more prominent. He tweaked at the one in his hand, pulling it out until it would go no further, her breast stretching. She moaned which only made him smile, an evil smile that seemed somehow inhuman considering the way his body looked.

Long whip marks marred his back and buttocks, reminders of dear, recently deceased Grandma. He'd made sure her body would never be found. Scars from burn marks were like tracks over his chest and across his stomach. His thighs were covered with other kinds of scars, long ones from where he'd taken to sliding a razor blade across them when things got too much to bear and the pain he'd dealt with all his life became more than he could handle. It had kept him focused for so long, able to do his job and to act normal in real life.

But his wife had noticed, the little incidents that had grown until she'd left one day while he was at work, running away with no notice or forwarding address. He could have found her easily, and maybe one day he would, but for now, he had another woman to deal with. She would be his to deal with, Buffy Summers would be his.

The girl roused, her mouth opening to scream at the pain she felt as well as the terrible sight of this man who'd raped and beaten her. He was crazy, the things he had done to her were insane. The things he had made her do were worse. Her mouth was open, her lungs working to find the air to scream, but nothing but gasping noises would come out of her gaping mouth.

He smiled down at her, loosing his hold upon her nipple and slipping his finger into her sopping pussy. Pulling his spunk coated fingers out, he wiped them around her lips, sliding them inside her open mouth before yanking his hand back as she tried to bite him. "Bitch," he said pleasantly, reaching out almost gently and slapping her hard enough to draw blood to her mouth. He walked away, hearing her gasps of pain as she tried to move, knowing that her leg was broken, for he'd done that on purpose. He'd broken her ribs too, and strangled her enough to damage her voice box. He didn't want her speaking, not until he was ready.

Nina watched the monster turn away from her and tried to sit up. The pain was awesome, overwhelming and immense, radiating from her chest out. She tried to move her legs but more pain assailed her, making her feel dizzy and light headed. She fell back against the floor, panting, whimpers coming from her mouth as that was the most sound she could make.

When he turned, his eyes wild, his hands shaking, she screamed, no sound coming from her mouth. In his trembling hand was a scalpel, the metal shining in the light from the small lamp above her. He walked towards her as she tried to drag herself across the floor, coming to stand above her with the knife raised above his head.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen:

Angel stared down at Buffy's sleeping form knowing she was going to be pissed when she woke. He couldn't stay in her apartment; he had to work, just as she did. He leaned down, brushing her bangs off of her forehead and let his lips linger gently against her skin for an instant. "I love you, Buffy."

She mumbled something in her sleep, turning her face up to his, her eyes fluttering before exhaustion pulled her back down. She cuddled into the comforter, reaching out in her sleep and gathering the pillow he'd used against her. He smiled as she buried her face in it and with one more gentle kiss, this time on her bare shoulder he turned to leave the apartment.

His car was in the lot where he'd left it and he hopped in, knowing he should stop at home and change. Instead, he decided to use the lockers at work, he kept extra clothes there, and he could always wear scrubs if need be.

But what waited for him at the hospital? Would there be scores of reporters like in all the cop dramas he'd ever seen. Could they have gotten his name from "an inside source" at the police station? Would he even have a job when he got there?

* * *

Pulling into the doctors' lot, he breathed a sigh of relief. There didn't seem to be any unusual activity around the hospital. There was the usual hubbub of noise and sirens, a helicopter sat on the lawn, one of the life flights, it rotors still. A steady stream of traffic ran both in and out of the hospital. Just like every other day. Then why did he feel like something was going to happen?

Stopping at security to report his missing badge and to get a new one took only a few minutes. From there, he headed down to the doctors' lounge and locker rooms, determined to get cleaned up before he started work.

The shower felt fantastic, helping to rid the last of his fatigue. He wrapped a towel around his waist, shaking his dark head to help dry his hair before leaving the shower to head to his locker. On the other side of a short wall were two women who didn't see him as he walked by, too engrossed in their conversation to notice.

"Did you see the paper this morning?"

"Yeah, that pervert got another one. When are the cops going to do something about it?"

"I don't know what you're worried about, you're a brunette. He only goes after fair haired women."

"Yeah, but honey, unless you plan to lose a hundred or so pounds, I don't think you got much to worry about either. This pervert's got a type."

"And I don't want to be it, so I'll stay the way I am, thank you very much."

Angel drew the towel from around his stomach and shook his head. It was all anyone was talking about. It would probably be all he heard about today. And if they ever found out his hospital badge was found folded into the last victim's clothes, he shook his head again, not wanting to even think of the mayhem that would cause.

He dressed in scrubs, throwing on the other pair of shoes he kept in his locker as just in cases. He couldn't count all of the kids and adults he'd had that had vomited on his shoes, or his clothes, so he kept a change of each here. Throwing on his lab coat, he pinned his badge securely on the collar, throwing his stethoscope around his neck and brushing his still damp hair back from his face, he went to start his day.

The Emergency Room wasn't too crowded when he got there, a couple of kids with ear infections, one older man who came in with chest pains, they had him in the glass room where they could keep an eye on him. Another bed in the same room contained a woman with a kidney stone whose blood pressure had skyrocketed with the pain. She was being admitted, but they were waiting on a room.

Angel stopped at the desk, picking up the list of charts and flicking through it. He made small talk with the nurse that was there, a night shift nurse who was covering for day shift, she was yawning her way through the stack of files that needed checking.

He heard the ambulance, the wild scream of its siren, before he saw it backing into the bay. Dropping the list back on the desk he hurried to the doors, reaching them just as the ambulance driver threw the vehicle into park and jumped out to help unload their charge.

"What we got?" Angel called, hitting the button that held the doors open.

"Twenty four year old woman, attacked, raped and beaten, then sliced open with a knife. She's bad, doc." The first ambulance attendant looked down on the small woman on the gurney, glad that she'd passed out. When they'd gotten to the scene, she'd been awake, her mouth opened, her eyes glazed as she tried to scream. But whatever monster that had done this had taken care of that, crushing her voice box so that all that would escape were whimpers. "She's got a broken leg, ribs, and we think her voice box was crushed, but those are minor compared to what he did with the knife."

"What did he do?" Angel asked, even as he ran along beside the gurney directing them into a curtained area.

"You have to see it, doc," the EMT said. "You just have to see it."

They lifted the girl from the gurney easily between the four of them, as the other nurses started to stream into the room to help. Her clothes were already mostly gone, bare shreds of fabric hanging from around her wrists, the waistband of her red skirt still around her waist, the fabric under it gone. Her body was a mass of bruises, ugly black marks that were welted and swollen, especially around her throat. There was a perfect imprint of a hand print there.

"We had to intubate. She wasn't breathing when we got there."

But the worst of it was across her stomach under the bloody gauze and thick pad they'd wrapped there. Angel lifted it gently, grateful to see that the bleeding had almost stopped. Cutting through the pad, he heard one of the nurse's gasp and he stood there, his heart in his throat, his mind frozen. Across her stomach, etched into her flesh by the blade of a knife in the hand of a killer was a single word. A name. Buffy.

"Who found her?" he asked hoarsely.

"I don't know, there was a cop with her when we got there. He was plain clothes but we didn't ask for identification or anything. We were anxious to get her back here."

"A cop?"

* * *

Buffy woke slowly, her mind still fuzzy from lack of sleep. Her hand slid out along the smooth line of her sheet, searching for Angel's large, warm body. She could take another hour, she decided. Another hour in bed with him would get her ready for the day ahead. But a frown marred her countenance as her hand felt nothing but bed.

"Angel?" she called, sitting up and holding the blanket to her breast. The apartment was almost eerily silent, the lack of noise bothering her. "Dammit, he went to work," she muttered. She got up from the bed, stretching her tiny frame to it's fullest before walking nude to her bathroom. She had a good mind to go down to the hospital and drag his ass back, maybe put him under house arrest until this thing was over.

In the bathroom, she relieved her bladder before hopping into the shower and turning it on so the water pelted into her flesh in a hard stinging rain, waking her the rest of the way. Then she softened the spray, washing and shampooing her hair. Reaching out for her towel, her fingers groped along the wall, not finding it.

"Looking for this?" a male voice said from outside the curtain.

Buffy's shriek was more from being startled than from fear, for she knew that voice. "Riley, what the fuck are you doing here?" she asked, snatching the towel from his fingers. She wrapped it around her, shaking her head like a wet dog would and then stepping out onto her bathmat. "How do you keep getting in here?" she asked angrily.

"Okay, listen, I know you are pissed about this morning. And you have every right to be. But I'm here for a reason. We found another one this morning, Buffy. Another girl who looks sort of like you. But this one is still alive. She's on her way to the hospital."

"She's still alive? He didn't kill her?" Buffy shook her head slowly. "That's sloppy and definitely not like our suspect."

"Where's McKenna?" he asked.

"He went to work," she said, trying to keep the anger out of her tone. "But if he was here with me and there was another attack, that proves he didn't do it, doesn't it," she said, her tone daring Riley to argue with her.

"What time did he leave?"

"I don't know exactly," she grudgingly answered. "I was asleep."

"Then I need to go down there and ask him," Riley answered, turning to leave.

Buffy grabbed his arm, using every bit of strength she had to hang on. "I'm going with you."

"The captain took you off the case, Buffy. And for a very good reason, considering you're sleeping with the main suspect."

"But if he was with me during the attack, he isn't the main suspect anymore. That means I'm back on the case." Buffy dug her fingers into his arm. "Please, Ri. Don't make me beg here to do my job. I have a huge stake in this case, who better to work it?"

Riley closed his eyes, exhaling a huge sigh. "Get dressed, I'll probably have to turn in my badge over this, but I can't deny you."

She turned to go into her room, turning back at the last moment. "Thank you. You've always been my best friend as well as my partner. I need you to know that."

Riley looked up, a wry smile twisting his lips. He nodded, waiting until she left the room before he sat on the lid of the toilet. "But it's not enough, is it. Not enough for me, or for you. Dammit, why couldn't you love me?" he asked, his voice nothing more than a mutter.

It took her no time to get dressed and she grabbed her gun, slipping the holster over her shoulder and feeling better with its familiar weight under her arm. At the last second, she grabbed her ankle wrap, slipping her back up pistol into it and velcroing it closed. Then she put on her half boots, found a jacket and called to her partner.

He walked into her room, amazed at her beauty even with dark shadows bruising the flesh under her eyes, no make up and her hair still wet.

"Let's go," she said, grabbing the keys to her car.

"I've got mine downstairs," he said.

He saw her hesitate and wanted to curse. But he knew if he lost his temper, she'd leave and go on her own. "Come on, Buf, I promise to keep my hands off, okay? I know when I've lost."

"Okay," she said, but there was a note of uncertainty that struck a sharp blow to his heart.

* * *

They headed down and piled into his car. He surprised her by keeping to the speed limit and not trying to kill her like he did every other time they rode when he drove. They reached the hospital and Buffy opened her car door, stopping when she saw Riley just sitting there.

"The press is here," he nodded toward the vans that were lined up in the parking lot.

"We need units down here for crowd control," she said, watching as he reached for the radio he kept in his car. He called it in, finally opening his door, almost as if he were afraid to go into the building.

"What's wrong with you? Come on, dammit, Riley. We've got a potential witness there who could give us information in finding this pervert and you're sitting on your ass here."

"Yeah, uh, yeah, let's go," he said, finally getting out of the car and following her into the hospital.

The first person she saw was Angel, the front of the protective gown he'd put on before working on the girl was stained with her blood. He was on the phone, his hair wild as if he'd been pulling on it. When he saw her, his eyes widened and he dropped the phone back on its cradle, walking over to her. He leaned down and kissed her, just a quick kiss but it left an impression. "I've been calling your place for the last ten minutes. I was scared to death that something happened to you."

"I'm fine. Riley came and got me. He says this guy left a victim alive?"

"Barely. Her heart's still beating but she's lost a lot of blood. There were some internal injuries due to the beating he gave her, broken bones and he strangled her, her voice box is damaged. I don't know if it's permanent or if she'll regain use when the swelling goes down." He pushed his hand through his hair, looking down and seeing the paper gown he still wore, he reached up and pulled it off, the ties ripping apart easily. "That's not the worst of it, though. He ... he carved your name across her abdomen, Buffy."

"He what?" she asked, aghast at the thought, not only of what the girl suffered but how their perpetrator was now making this so incredibly personal.

"He used a very sharp instrument, most likely a scalpel of some kind."

"Do we have any identification on her yet?" Riley asked.

"Yeah, her driver's license was in her hand. At least I think it's her. It's kind of hard to tell right now with all the swelling." He went back to the desk and picked up a file, flipping open the metal cover and peering at the first page. "Nina Ash. I gave the license to the man you sent. He's in there with her now, standing guard as you requested."

Riley stiffened, his eyes going to Buffy's. "I didn't request a guard for her." He reached under his jacket, pulling out his pistol and flipping off the safety. "Where is she, doctor?"


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen:

Buffy drew her pistol, slipping off the safety as well and holding it with her elbow cocked, the barrel pointing toward the ceiling. Her heart was racing as she followed Riley and Angel down the long hall of curtained rooms towards the end. God, she knew there was a reason she hated hospitals.

Behind the curtain, they could make out the shape of an individual standing close to where the curtain parted. Angel pointed and then stepped back, wanting badly to grab Buffy's arm, make her stay with him while Riley took care of whatever was to take care of. But he couldn't do that to her. It would be like her telling him not to practice medicine because the man he had to treat was a psychotic killer. He had to do his job, no matter the peril, she had to do hers. But it was hard, damn hard.

Riley parted the curtain, staring at the figure of the man standing just far enough outside of the main light to keep him from being easily recognizable. He was in uniform, standing at parade rest, his eyes on the form lying quietly on the bed, her body swathed in bandages, her face swollen beyond recognition. Riley stepped through the curtain, swearing loudly as he finally could put a name to the face. "Dammit, Mears, who told you to come out here?"

Buffy slipped through the curtain, Angel just behind her. She stared with stunned disbelief at the man standing there. Warren Mears, not in uniform though his badge was displayed on his belt, stood just in jeans and western style shirt, his gun on a shoulder holster like hers but not covered. "You're out of uniform, officer," she snapped at the man, seeing the hostile glare in his eyes. That glare doubled when he saw Angel behind her.

"You didn't send him to guard the patient?" Angel asked again.

"No, I didn't. So who did, Mears? As far as I knew, this was hush hush. I was the only officer responding to the scene, and the only other cop who knows anything about this is the chief." Riley glared at the man and Buffy moved between the two, using her elbow to force Riley back a step.

"Give him a chance to answer," she hissed.

All three pair of eyes were on the tall man. "I don't know what his game is," Warren finally said, nodding toward Riley. "He called me a little while ago and told me to come out here, that I should stand guard until he arrived with you," he said, staring at Buffy.

Buffy turned and looked up at Riley. He shook his head, shrugging his shoulders.

"What reason do I have to lie? He told me not to worry about uniform, just to get my ass down here. He didn't want the lady over there to be left alone for one minute, even if they had to take her into surgery." Warren turned a hostile glare on Riley. "You're just trying to make me look bad again, like you did before. I got a week off without pay because of you."

"That wasn't because of him, Mears," Buffy said. "That was because of you and your shoddy police work. And it wasn't him that reported you, it was me. Which you would have known if you'd looked at the report. Riley didn't sign it, I did." Buffy felt the heat of his glare and glared right back. But there was something in his eyes, something black and cold. It sent a shiver through her that just down right irritated her. It also unnerved her a little, because he was looking at her as if he knew a secret. As if he knew the secret of her soul.

Angel spoke up, staring over at the still figure on the bed. "You three need to take this out of here," he said, holding open the curtain.

"I figured as much," Warren grumbled, ignoring Angel and pulling his hands from behind his back.

Buffy took a step back as she saw what was in his hand, her eyes going from confrontational to wary in that single step. "Whoa, Woarren," she said, her hand coming up. "Just because we have problems dealing with each other doesn't mean there is any reason for this."

Riley stared at the pistol clasped in the man's hand, the pistol that was pointed at Buffy. He heard Angel gasp at the sight, saw him reach for Buffy, a protective gesture that he could appreciate because he'd probably have tried it himself before he'd gotten to really know her. But Warren saw it too, and he shook his head.

"Nope, doc, me and lady super cop here have stuff to discuss. So, if you don't want to see her bleeding on your nice shiny floor, step back real slow."

"What do you think you're going to get out of this, Mears? You'll end up in prison wearing an orange jumpsuit. You know what they do with ex cops in prison?" Riley asked him slowly, holding his hands well away from his own pistol. "You put that down and we'll set you up with the department shrink instead. What do you think?"

Warren snorted, glancing up from where he was staring at Buffy. "Shrinks? The whole lot of them are useless. They couldn't help me before, they couldn't stop me from ... Well, they just didn't stop me."

"So what do you want?" Buffy spoke up.

"What I've wanted since this whole thing started. You."

"Wait a minute," she said, stepping forward only to be waved back by the pistol. "What do you mean, since what whole thing started?"

"As if you don't know," he said. "Ask your partner there, ask him who's killing these women. He knows." Warren turned the pistol on Riley as he spoke, then back to Buffy.

"What could I possibly know? If I knew who was committing the murders, don't you think I'd haul their asses in before they could hurt someone else? Come on man, we're cops here. We uphold the law, not break them."

At that, Angel wanted to snort at that statement, just glancing at the bruises still visible on Buffy's throat. Instead he looked back at his patient, worried that she might wake and start a whole new problem with this sort of situation.

Buffy glanced up at Riley, feeling his eyes on her. His narrowed as she looked at him, reading the question in her eyes and hating that she even doubted him. "And anyway, what does she have to do with this?" he asked.

"She's the reason these murders are happening. She's the reason this guy keeps killing. This guy, you," Warren said, lifting his gun and pointing it at Riley. "You want her but she wants the doc over there. And since you can't have her, you're going after women who look like her. Why the fuck you're killing them, well ... that's your own deal."

"You're crazy," Buffy said, staring between the two men. "He's been my partner for years. Why the hell would I believe you over him?"

"Because I have proof. That lady, right there in that bed, she's the proof. When she wakes up, she'll tell you that he's the one that assaulted her." Warren pointed with his gun.

"So, what? You're going to keep us in this area until she can wake up and start pointing fingers? And how do we know it isn't you that's done all these attacks?" Riley stepped forward, only stopping when he felt the barrel of Warren's pistol press into his stomach.

"No. I don't care if you want to kill women. I'm tired of being treated like shit in this piece of crap town. I'm leaving. And I'm taking super cop here with me." Warren gestured at Buffy, smiling lewdly down at her. "I want to get a taste of what everyone else is getting."

Angel growled, his body tensing. Buffy stared at him for a minute, her eyes telling him to calm down, though it barely got through his anger. "Over my dead body," he snarled, his hands closing into fists.

"I'd hate to do that, doc. You ain't done me no harm. Not like these two have. But if I had to, I would. Now, you two shuck them weapons. I want them on the floor and kicked over there, under that bed. Real gentle like, two fingers," he warned as Riley began to reach under his shirt for his weapon. "Now, turn around and lift your shirts, don't want no back up weapons going off on accident now do we," he added with a chuckle.

"I need to know, Mears," Buffy said softly. "Why do you suspect Riley here?"

"The woman, each in their own way, some more than others ... they looked like you. He's got a huge hard on for you. You put two and two together."

"How do we know it's not you?" Riley said, tamping down on his anger and the rest of the emotions coiling inside of him. He had to stay calm. He couldn't let this psycho out of here, not with Buffy. He finished his circle, dropping his shirt back down so it hung over his jeans. "From what you're saying, you've got just as big a hard on for her, and she's caused you grief. How do we know you aren't killing them to take out your aggravation with her?"

"For Christ's sake!" Mears exclaimed, waving his hands, his arms rising. "Who the fuck cares? I'm taking her and leaving no matter what."

"You're bleeding, Warren" Buffy said softly, staring at the bloody patch of shirt that showed on his left arm.

He looked down at the spreading patch and swore. "Fuck, shit, damn. Thought I got that to quit, the damn bitc..." He clamped his mouth shut, staring daggers at Buffy as he realized what he'd said. "Never mind that, it'll quit."

"Why'd you do it, Mears? Why'd you kill those innocent girls?" Buffy asked him, moving a little closer, her voice pitched low and intimate.

For a minute she didn't think he would answer, then suddenly it seemed to almost burst out of him. "Because of you, you fucking bitch. All those years, you never even saw me. All those letters I sent to you, all the nights I spent alone because of you. You're the reason my wife left me. You're the reason that I could never get it up with anyone else. And then I'd take you, over and over and it wasn't you!" He reached out, grabbing her arm and pulling her close, the pistol all but forgotten at his side.

Riley saw his chance, and he took it. Leaping forward, he grabbed Warren's arm, hoisting the pistol up. He let go of Buffy, pushing her backwards. She fell against some machinery in the corner, hitting her head hard. Her teeth clicked together with a noise that sounded huge in her spinning head and she couldn't see for a minute as the pain caused everything to swim in front of her.

She heard it though, the noise of two men fighting, grunts and blows, the woof when someone took a hit to the stomach. She heard Angel let out a grunt, felt a body fall next to her as she tried to shake off the pain.

And then she heard the shot. Putting her hand up to her head, she watched in painful shock as Riley, his eyes glazed with disbelief, fell to the floor, blood welling to flow over his shirt from a wound in his chest.

The room spun around her, she stared at his body, watching it fall in what seemed like slow motion. She could smell the fresh metallic scent of blood and the burning smell of a gun blast. And then her backup weapon was in her hand, the Velcro shook off, and she pointed and fired.

Warren Mears jumped as the bullet struck him, staring at JBuffy with eyes filled with hatred. He lifted his gun, pointing it at her and she fired again, this time striking him in the shoulder of his gun hand. He dropped his gun, his arm falling nervously to his side before he sank to the floor.

Buffy forced herself up, kicking the gun away from him before he could think of grabbing it again. He stared at her, his teeth gritted, a snarl on his face. She could only think he looked like a mad dog. They put mad dogs to sleep. The itch to put her gun to his head was strong, but she was a cop, first and foremost. And cops don't take the law into their own hands. With a strength she didn't know she possessed, she turned him on his face, little caring about his wounds. Cuffing his hands behind his back, she left him there, turning to Riley.

Angel was on the floor next to him. He had his hands inside his shirt, had ripped the tank top he'd been wearing under it off of him, using it to press against the wound to staunch his blood. "Get me some help in here," he yelled at her.

She opened the curtain, amazed at the sea of curious faces that stared back at her. "We need help in here," she said, turning to watch as nurses burst through the curtain. A gurney was rushed in and two men picked up Warren, seeing the blood on him, they got another gurney and another doctor was called.

They rushed the two men out of the room, taking them to their own curtains while she stood there, her head still spinning. She had to call it in. She had to ... she sank down against the curtain.

"You okay?"

Buffy looked up to see a blonde nurse staring down at her. "Yeah, just a bump on the head made me a little dizzy. Do you know how my partner is?"

"Your partner? Is he the tall blonde or the one in cuffs?"

"The blonde. And is there a phone I can use around here, I have to call this in."

"911 got called when we heard the ruckus. I don't know anything about your partner but I think we should get you on a gurney and have you looked at."

Buffy was shaking her head as soon as she heard the word gurney. "I've got a hard head. I'm fine. If you could find out something about my partner for me, I'd be thankful." She managed to get up on her own, fighting the dizziness that threatened to send her spinning.

"I'll see what I can do." She turned after sending a concerned look at Buffy, hurrying down to one of the curtained off rooms. Buffy went to follow her, stopping when she heard the sirens coming, knowing she would have to explain what went down.

The first team of cops came rushing in, guns drawn. Buffy waved them down, holding up her badge. "Detective Buffy Summers. I've got things under control here."

"I don't know about that," said a booming voice from behind her that had her flinching in more than pain.

"Ahhh, chief, just the man I needed to see."

He took one look at her pale face and the trickle of blood that was running down her neck now and grabbed her arm. "Nurse, you got a free bed?"

"I don't need a bed," Buffy said, trying to back away, but the chief held her arm in an iron grasp.

"And I don't need my detectives falling down on me while they report. Shut up, Summers and do as you are told."

"Bravo," Angel said, coming up from behind her and parting her short, blonde curls to see the lump that was steadily oozing blood. "I got her from here, chief. Your other detective is heading to surgery. He has a bullet lodged next to his lung but it missed all vital organs. Barring complications, he should be fine."

"Mind if I tag along?" the chief asked. "I'd love to know why my detective has a bullet lodged next to his lung and my other one is roaming around the hospital with a concussion."

Angel held aside the curtain for the chief, then grabbed JBuffy's arm a little further when she tried to duck out. "Behave and I'll give you a sucker when I'm done with you," he ordered.

"Just slap some ice on it. I got reports to write," she urged, hating the sound whining in her voice. "And I'd like to see my partner."

"I might slap something on you, but it won't be ice, now behave. Or do I have to get some restraints put on you?" He cocked his brow at her, letting her know that he was serious.

"Dammit, I tapped my head on a piece of machinery," she groused as he parted her hair once more, pulling out bandages and other assorted things she didn't want to know what he was going to use for.

"Summers, suck it up and be a man. Now you want to tell me what in the hell happened here?"

She did, occasionally sucking in a breath as well as Angel probed too hard or when he stuck the needle in to numb her for the "couple of stitches" he decided she had to have. She also managed to remember to put in a request for search warrant for both Warren Mears' home and his locker at the station as well as his car.

"How did you know we were down here, chief? You showed up kind of fortuitously." She winced as the needle went into her flesh even though he'd numbed it. She felt the push on the bruise and knew what was happening.

"I was on my way down to find your partner. He'd called about the girl, after he'd gotten a call from one of the uniforms responding to the scene. We wanted to keep it quiet so we've got plains clothes out there watching the scene now. I haven't even sent in crime scene yet. We wanted to keep it quiet that the girl was still alive." He stood from where he'd been sitting on a little stool and stretched. "I'm going to go check on SFinn and make a few phone calls. I want you to stay here and rest for a few, unless the doctor here is going to recommend you stay put?"

"I could," Angel said, "but I know she'd just sign herself out anyway. So instead I'll just have to pay her a house call and make sure she's behaving herself. But I am going to say, absolutely, no driving. Find someone to take you where you need to go." He finished his last stitch, snipping it off and then laid a piece of gauze over it and began to wrap it gently.

"I'll be back after I call in for those warrants. And then we can go over to his place together." The chief started to head out the door but a noise from Buffy stopped him. "What?"

"Together? Chief, I thought I'd get a uniform to take me over..."

"Are you doubting my police skills, Detective?" he asked in a low voice.

"Uh, no sir, but it's been a while since you've been out from behind the desk, respectfully sir," she said, knowing she was on thin ice.

"I still know how to do a search. I'll make sure we got a wide scope on the warrant and I'll call in the crime scene techs. We'll have it covered. Right now, just let the good doctor patch you up and I'll find you in a bit."

She was quiet after he left, her mind whirling with bits of pain mixed with the things she had to do. Angel finished, sitting quietly behind her for a minute before he startled her by taking her in his arms. He didn't say anything, just sat with her against his chest, her back to him, his face buried in her hair. She felt him inhale, felt the little hitch in his breathing before he let it out in a long sigh.

"Are you okay?" she asked, turning her head up to his, grimacing a little at the pain the move caused.

"I think I aged twenty years in the past hour but, yeah, I'm okay. Do me a favor, no more getting banged up for a while, okay?" he stared down into her pretty eyes, eyes that were shadowed by pain and fatigue.

"I'll do my best, Doc. But I think I'll keep your number handy just in case." She leaned forward, finding his lips with hers, inhaling herself when he captured hers, his mouth hot, his tongue dipping into hers. He pulled away, his chocolate brown eyes studying her face.

"I had an epiphany last night, Buffy Summers. And you may think it's too soon but I gotta tell you. I love you."

She turned to face him, waiting for the small flicker of panic that usually accompanied a declaration like his. But there was nothing. Nothing but a wonderfully warm glow that seemed to suffuse her with warmth. She smiled up at him, her hand going to his cheek. "I..."

"Come on, Summers," the chief groused from the edge of the curtain. "I got the papers; let's go finish nailing the lid on the case."

* * *

Buffy was at home, finally, after a long day. She'd gone to Warren Mears' home, going through it with the Crime Scene techs. They had enough on him to put him away for a long time. There was more in his car and even in his locker at work. He had pictures of her, taken in different places at different times, on work and off. They were hidden, under a loose board in a creepy little room. The room looked like a child's room, with ancient wallpaper down with cowboys and Indians. There was a small dresser, also a child's and a small bed that couldn't have fit his body.

There was also an older woman's clothing there, a set of dentures in a glass on a stand. The apartment smelled of old musty clothes and ancient papers, and it was dark, light coming in dimly through old roll down blinds. They found Social Security checks made out to a Mrs. Abigail Mears, and mail addressed the same name. But no one could remember seeing her or anyone other than Warren coming and going from the residence. Buffy figured the woman was dead, another of his victims. She wondered if her body would ever be found.

The chief had stopped to see Mears, and the doctor had given him a glimpse of the scars on his body, the burns and the whip marks that told of either sexual deviance or a very sad upbringing. He'd also been told about the scars on his thighs, marks that were self made. Marks that just screamed that the poor man needed help. But then again, so did the single earring they'd found, and the small necklace that had belonged to his first known victim. In his car, they'd found a blonde wig. And Buffy remembered what Warren had said about Mrs. Ash knowing her attacker and being able to pick Riley out.

The hardest thing for her to figure out was why. She didn't know him, not the way he said she did. She hadn't seen him at all except for the day she'd gotten into it with him at the crime scene.

There was a knock on her door and she hoisted herself off the couch, going to the door. Peeking through the peep hole, she smiled. Angel.

He came in, holding a huge bouquet of yellow roses. "Hi," he said, leaning down to kiss her before letting her have the flowers.

"Hi yourself," she said, burying her face in the wonderful scent and soft petals of the flowers. She was a sucker for roses, but she wouldn't tell him that.

"I thought you could use a little pick me up after today." He watched as she went into the kitchen and hunted up a vase, arranging the flowers and filling the vase with warm water before putting it on her table.

"They are beautiful, Angel, but you didn't have to do that."

"I wanted to. I figured that if a man can't buy the woman he loves roses, then he ain't much of a man. How bad was it?"

"Bad. We've got him, there's no chance of him escaping. He'll probably end up in some mental hospital for the next, oh, hundred years or so." She walked over and took his hand, pulling him over to the couch and pushing him down on it only to follow him down. Cuddling next to him, she took his hand in hers and put her head on his shoulder, sighing gratefully.

"How's your head?" he asked, bending down to kiss her forehead gently.

"Painful, but I'll live. Poor Riley though. When I stopped to see him, he didn't look so good."

"He'll be up and chasing nurses in no time," Angel promised. "He's got a wonderful surgeon and some of the best care money can buy."

"I believe you," she said, still remember his pale face and the bandage wrapped around his chest, looking so strange in the hospital bed with all the tubes and stuff. "At least I get to pick on him when he gets out like he did me."

"You know, we were interrupted earlier today."

"Yeah," she said, looking up at him and smiling, "we were, weren't we?"

"And I believe you were about to say something to me," he hinted, lifting her hand and bringing it to his lips.

buffy shivered, there was just something about a big strong man who could do such a graceful gesture as kissing a woman's hand and make it look manly that made heat well up inside of her. Or maybe it was just this big, strong man? Yes, it was just him, she decided, seeing his eyes narrow as she still didn't say anything.

"Buffy..." he said, his voice dropping into a warning note.

"Yes, Angel," she said innocently, chuckling when he bit her finger. "Okay, okay, don't rush me. I mean how often does a girl tell the man of her dreams that she loves him?"

"You do?" he breathed, dropping her hand and pulling her over so she sat astride him.

"Yes," she said nodding.

"Say it," he urged her.

"I love you, Angel McKenna," she said, whispering his name against his lips.

His lips were warm and then hot as passion flared. Buffy wrapped her arms around his neck, her lips parting under the demand of his, doing some demanding of her own until his breathing grew heavy and she could feel a heavy bulge pressing against the crotch of her jeans. He moaned when she moved, rubbing against that bulge.

Then he tore his mouth from hers, putting his forehead against hers for one moment, trying to regain some semblance of balance in the hazy world of desire she was creating around him. He reached out, grabbing the bear he'd given her on their first date and bringing it between them. "Hmmm, since I love you, and you love me," he said glancing up at her. "What do you say to moving this little guy and all his friends to my house? Of course, you'd have to come to. I mean, who knows what these guys could get into without your calming influence."

"Are you asking me to move in with you?"

"Yeah, so..." he lifted one bear paw and waved it up at her. "What do you say?"

She pulled the bear out from between them, kissing him again. "I'd say that's a yes," she said, laughing as he picked her up and started walking with her down he hallway, the bear tumbling from her now busy fingers.

* * *

Author's Note: That's the end of the story. Hope you all enjoyed. Thanks for reading and the reviews.


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